


Firebreather

by frogsteak



Category: Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst and Feels, Blood and Injury, Dark Comedy, Demon/Human Relationships, Demons, Drama & Romance, F/M, Hist, M/M, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:22:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28085397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogsteak/pseuds/frogsteak
Summary: A demon, known as a Firebreather, saves Isa from certain death for the price of Isa's heart and adds wealth beyond Isa's imagination to sweeten the deal. Ten years later, Isa is still obsessed with the demon, confident that he must find the Firebreather to mend the void in his chest in order to feel again. He acquires the help of the world-renowned occultist Xemnas Gamal to find the Firebreather who has his heart.
Relationships: Aqua/Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts), Axel/Saïx (Kingdom Hearts), Isa/Lea (Kingdom Hearts), Isa/Xemnas, Saïx/Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21
Collections: MoonFire Big Bang 2020





	1. Oversight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! I hope everyone's staying safe out there. Quick update about Insomnolents for anyone who's reading that: it's still in the works, but had to take a break from all things dystopia in these trying times.
> 
> The Moonfire Big Bang has been a fun challenge. Got to work with two swell artists, you're all in for an extra treat at the end of this chapter. Thank you so much [Flame](https://twitter.com/flamerobber) and [Avi](https://twitter.com/erkavii) for your splendid pieces. Visit them on Twitter for more goodness.  
> I would also like to thank my beta readers [BytheBi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BytheBi) and my dear friend Reyna.
> 
> Enjoy!

It is not enough  
to say _love_ in Arabic.  
You must say  
_be the thing that buries me_  
  
\- Hala Alyan, Interactive :: House Saints

________________________  
  


**1**

  


**Oversight**

  


London, 1871

  


☀☾☀

  
  


Isa’s palms were raw when he pressed them against the cold, wet concrete to push himself further into the dark of the alleyway. His teeth chattered, his arms trembled with the effort it took to suppress the pain. He didn’t make a sound. A bounty had been put on his head for the extra ten quid he had helped himself to, but mainly it was the audacity of stealing that had put the bullseye on his back. Five years he had spent digging tunnels for the Mayfair’s, breaking his back for crumbs that nary kept him away from gnawing at his own arm for supper. Ten quid was nothing to them, but they had sounded the alarm, and every gang short of coin was out on the streets, searching for him like bloodhounds in a frenzy.

Anyone with half a brain would give up. Rather a quick death at the hands of thugs than a life as a cripple, doomed to wander the streets for stale bread and pity. Isa had never broken a bone before, but the sound his ankles had made at the impact of the iron bar surely meant they’d been shattered. He wanted to stand up to make sure. He almost had, but there wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t protest. His vision blackened, his limbs twitched like they did in the in-between of sleep and waking, where the nightmares were at their worst; he couldn’t faint before he was safe in the dark of the alleyway where they wouldn’t search.

A cough came from a corner.

A chill ran down Isa’s spine.

His mouth watered, warning for an imminent purge Isa managed to keep down with as much effort as he’d done the pain.

They’d found him.

He’d never be seen again.

This was it.

There would be no body left to mourn; he had left no mark on the world. It would be like he never existed. They didn’t need the whole body to bring as proof to their masters. _Take the head, leave the body to the Fog_. Isa had heard it enough about coworkers – friends – that had disappeared.

A slender figure pushed away from the brick wall and stumbled forward. The water that dripped off the gutter at the top of the building made it hiss like hot coal.

Isa searched the ground frantically for a rock, a brick, anything he could use to smash the figure’s head in before it was done to him. Wisps of fog danced against the ground. Each small and quiet step the figure took made the fog dissipate.

“It looks like we’ve both overexerted ourselves.” A man’s voice. Young, no smoke or drink, none that could be traced in his voice at least.

“Stay away,” Isa gasped.

It came closer. A stray and distorted shadow with loud footsteps and a friendly voice. Isa tried to see the person behind it, to hear from where the sound came, but the shadow was all there was.

“I can help you.”

Isa tried to shake his head. There was a tenderness in its voice. A void in him yearned to respond to it and take it before anyone else could. It was a greed that frightened Isa more than violence.

The shadow approached him. It circled him, light like fog. It lost its humanoid shape just to buzz past Isa’s ears like a fly without self-preservation. Isa tried to grip the rock he’d found, but his fingers wouldn’t close around it.

“It doesn’t have to be like this.” The shadow gathered in front of Isa. “You can be more than they are. You can live a life of riches beyond their imagination and use it to squash each and every one of them like bugs.”

“From the afterlife?” Isa scoffed.

“You’re wounded, but unwilling to let go. You’re too angry to pass over. You’d become a vengeful ghost, stuck here to torment any drunkard lost enough to end up in this alley.” The shadow paused as if expecting Isa to say something, but continued after a brief silence. “Is that what you want for your eternity? This pain. Powerlessness. Far from where anyone can witness it. Die as you lived – in obscurity?”

Isa’s lips quivered. He cursed the warmth of the tears that trickled over the bridge of his nose.

“What choice do I have?” Isa tried to steady his voice.

“Help me, and I’ll return the favor tenfold.”

“How?”

“Give me your heart.”

The shadow transformed once more. It gathered all of its wisps to shift color and shape until Isa could hear the soft drumming of short, strong claws against the concrete. Red, small and shiny scales covered the shadow’s hands and continued up his forearms. They grew scarce closer to his elbows.

Isa’s heart throbbed in his ears with every small revelation. Alleged encounters of this nature were fodder for horror stories at the barracks. It was one of the many reasons no one should venture out when the Fog began to spread thick over the city and the red lights at the doors could not be seen from the streets. Demons. Abominations seeking endless power came to the doors of the weak-willed.

This particular demon was the most beautiful creature Isa had ever seen. His long, wild red hair draped over his shoulders; the small, dark horns by his temples seemed to have been crushed at some point; they accented his emerald green eyes somehow, just like the blue flame he burned with. The demon smiled, surely familiar with the awe in Isa’s eyes.

“What say you? Your heart for wealth.”

“I… I might need it – what if I need it?”

“Have you needed it thus far? Is a heart something necessary in a world like this?”

“Why would you need it if it wasn’t?”

The demon laid down to face Isa properly. He held Isa’s gaze while he caught a tear from the tip of Isa’s nose with the claw on his forefinger. Gentle. Each movement was gentle, disarming in a way that almost made Isa forget that he was bargaining with a demon toying with its meal.

“It would give me what I’d give you – power.”

“Why mine?”

“It’s strong.”

_Strong, not weak,_ Isa thought with brittle joy. A demon would know – know better than any sadistic boss eager to brandish a whip for productivity. Lucifer hadn’t fallen before stealing God’s Eye and gifting its sight to the creatures he created. Demons saw it all. There was no point in questioning the demon. It saw what Isa had always known, but never dared to admit out loud for fear of ridicule or proof of the opposite.

“I am strong.” Isa shivered. He couldn’t feel his fingers.

“No one else in your shoes would survive what you’ve survived. At no point in your struggle did you turn to your heart. You’ve made do without it, and that has kept you alive.”

The demon’s breath was warm against Isa’s lips. If only the demon could make it so that warmth spread through the rest of his body. It was too cold.

“Are all demons like you?”

“Like me?”

“Kind.”

“Is this kindness to you?” The demon chuckled softly. “I haven’t shown you kindness yet. Your new life will begin with kindness, and warmth, all you could ever need.”

“You can take it.” Isa’s voice was a whisper. “My heart. It’s yours.”

The faint blue flame flared up.

“Do you have a name?”

“Axel.”

“Isa.”

“Isa, this will only hurt if you fight it.”

“I won’t.”

Isa was certain that whatever came next would be a breeze in comparison. Any more pain would be beyond what he could register. That notion changed as soon as Axel turned him on his back. He didn’t scream because there wasn’t enough air in his lungs. Isa only heard a muffled gurgle and a splatter against the concrete when he turned his head. A scorching light flashed before his eyes. Every limb burned as if aflame.

“...not… I’m not… fighting…”

“You’re not.”

The demon’s voice echoed, one echo overlaying the other, until it became a shrill ring in Isa’s ears. He had sounded surprised. Or it was, perhaps, the wishful thinking of a dying mind.

The flames burned out slowly, and the pain with it. A wet heat coiled beneath his navel. It spread like the tendrils that hugged his hips.

Isa found himself gasping for air; his lungs complied with each breath. There was focus to his vision. He could move his toes, roll his ankles. The palms of his hands were smooth, his fingers closed around the demon’s soft hair, gently at first to not upset any lingering wounds, and then with increasing desperation when the wet heat possessed his hips and moved its center from his navel further down where he was engulfed by the demon’s mouth.

Fornication: that which took place in dark, half-dug tunnels that led nowhere between two people deluded about their place in the world long enough to expend energy they couldn’t afford. Isa had witnessed tasteless affairs and questioned the supposed exhilaration and ultimate reward. What made them all vile to the boss until it came to quench his vices? Isa concluded that most were just not meant to understand. Most were doomed to be tools of servitude.

But now…. He couldn’t recognize his voice when he moaned wantonly and called the demon’s name like a prayer of salvation. 

Isa trembled upon release.

The tiled ground was cold against his lower back. Isa looked around to see what had happened to his clothes, but his attention was caught by the change in the demon’s flames. He wasn’t burning blue anymore. The new life in the flames cast shadows in the alleyway.

The demon’s shadow had horns that were whole. It spread its tattered wings as Axel pulled Isa close; Isa felt the fine and faint scratches Axel left down his sides, and he watched in wonder as the beautiful creature leaned over him, a frightening, low growl in the back of his throat that made his voice waver once he could take to words, and whisper feverishly against the shell of Isa’s ear.

“Time to sign the contract.”

Isa ran his arms around the demon’s neck, favoring the warmth that radiated from him over the coldness of the ground and the gravel that dug into his back. Axel lifted him and positioned him on his lap. Up close, it was all swirling lights in bright colors, red, orange, blue, but when Isa lifted his gaze from where he hid in the nape of Axel’s neck, their shadows revealed their deeds.

Isa slid down the demon’s prick without much resistance. Isa clung on tightly, thighs trembling, and fingers gripping at Axel’s back with delight.

The coiled heat spread like fractals all over Isa’s skin; it seared a foreign, ancient language into his bones, and cradled Isa’s heart all the while Isa got lost in Axel’s deep kisses and overpowering thrusts. Isa wanted to touch himself, but he couldn’t reach with Axel’s arms around him like a constrictor, keeping him from lowering his arms beyond his chest. Isa moaned and mewled for a second release until it began to hit him in waves.

Isa froze, but Axel kept moving. The lines between them blurred. Isa melted against Axel, became him as much as Axel became Isa. 

For a few seconds, all was right in the world. 

The Fog dispersed and revealed a loving sun.

But once those few seconds had passed, reality came rushing back, and Isa found himself, naked and alone, in a dark alleyway.

  
  


☀☾☀

  


TEN YEARS LATER

London, 1881 

  


☀☾☀

  
  
  


Isa pulled the curtains apart with slender fingers, just enough to catch a glimpse of the ghastly caravans of cursed Travellers, the sacrifices that had survived the Fog. They were vessels of plague and destruction as far as the citizens of London were concerned, and as the city’s humble servant, Isa had them repeatedly displaced from wherever they decided to make camp until finally they began to make way towards the fields out west.

It seemed like they knew whose mansion they were walking past. They passed a basket around, and in unison, a group of six in red and black striped bodysuits and large, horn-shaped hats threw eggs over the barred gate. Three of them shattered against the window and distorted Isa’s view of the street. They had become bold.

The stories that preceded the Travellers spoke of a jittery bunch, heads in a constant bow, eager to please for a slice of cheese. This group was certainly not what the stories had painted. Two of Isa’s guards had come back with fractured bones and ugly bruises after a scuffle last night. The Travellers paraded down the street in their demonic outfits and make-up as if the common man wasn’t petrified by their presence already. They were ruthless rather than jittery.

Isa considered making a phone call to the guard booth to remind the vermin whose street they were walking on; it would certainly earn him the favor of his neighbors, but he thought better of it when he squinted and saw Professor Xemnas walk to the gate, gaze firmly upon the Travellers and their colorful caravans.

The flicker of anticipation became a moment of frustration before both emotions were suffocated by the dull void that had settled where his heart used to be. He experienced emotion like punishments in the tunnels when he was a youngster. He would be seated at the wobbly dinner table in the barracks, his mind numb with hunger; on a third day with just water, they’d pass the bowls with stew past him, enough for a whiff, enough to upset the hole hunger was gnawing through his stomach; that was all he could feel – hunger. Not anger, not sadness, not even self-pity, just hunger with the looming knowledge of the whipping that awaited him if he caved in.

Isa stepped away from the window to face his desk. It was littered with piles of invitations to dinners, private and for charity, mingle parties, brunches, lunches, and a line of prayer breakfasts, any and all excuses to have him present. Normally, he’d have his assistant filter through them and send replies, but it had been two weeks since his last assistant left due to a ‘broken heart’ and Isa’s ‘whoreson ways.’

There was only one invitation in the bunch that had caught Isa’s eye: Lady Aqua’s invitation to the _Cirque Macabre._ The invitation had a blueish light about it, like a weak aurora borealis localized to the card itself. It was a spell that bound it to her and her recipient. She must have gone out of her way to find a sorcerer capable of such a feat. Xemnas would have tripped over his own feet for such an opportunity, but Isa kept him busy.

There were voices downstairs – Xemnas and the housemaid. A short greeting and then came Xemnas’ disgruntled steps as he struggled up the stairs.

Isa loosened the knot of the silky belt holding his morning robe together and pulled on the V-shaped neckline of his nightgown to straighten it. Many things had lost their luster over the years; Xemnas’ bewildered reactions to Isa’s disregard for decorum and proper etiquette was one thing that still managed to elicit an emotional response that lasted for longer than a second.

He could’ve sat down on his imposing leather chair, but decided to lean against his mahogany desk to be the first thing Xemnas saw upon stumbling into his office. And stumble he did.

“God’s sake,” Xemnas’ muttered. “When are you going to change the stairs back to normal? It’s like a blasted funhouse out… Are, are you serious?”

Xemnas straightened his back. The uneven stairs up to the second floor were completely out of his mind. He thumbed on the thick manila folder in his hands before he tucked it under his arm to fidget with his coat. He ogled, traced his gaze up Isa’s bare legs; imagined, without a doubt, the soft flesh of his inner thighs; he was enticed by the invitation of the loosely tied robe; offended by the implication, and anxious by its veracity.

Isa followed every change in the micro expressions of Xemnas’s face. _What a delight to experience so much in so little time._

“I haven’t prepared for anything other than a briefing,” Xemnas informed him with a vaguely dissimulated gulp.

“Good, we’re only here for a briefing.” Isa rounded the desk to sit down in his chair. He leaned back and placed his feet on the right-hand corner.

“Why must you greet me like a common whore then?”

“To get a rise out of you.”

“Mission not accomplished,” Xemnas informed him. He sat down, pulled his dark leather gloves off to pinch the bridge of his nose and avert his gaze. He sighed. “You’ve run me ragged with this wild goose chase after the Travellers. I had barely gotten them to talk to me when your goons kicked them to the curb. Not once, not twice, but thrice. I should be so lucky to have eggs and not rocks thrown at me if I try to approach them again.”

“And?” Isa hid a yawn behind his hand. “Found anything interesting?”

“I did.” Xemnas tossed the manila envelope on the desk so it landed right by Isa. “They’re followed by a Firebreather. Judging by your Firebreather’s last known location, it’s him on their tail. He should be here any day, as long as the Travellers stay on track.” Xemnas cleared his throat. “It’s going to bring the Fog into the city.”

“We’ll be quick.”

“You should inform the mayor. Take an ad out in the paper.”

Isa flipped through the notes that had been in the folder. Xemnas had neat handwriting for a passionate researcher. There were pages that had been carefully torn out of old books. They had been placed between sheets of leather for protection. Isa skimmed various lists. _Firebreather sightings: Great Britain, overall, twenty sightings since 1795. Morayshire, Scotland, two sightings. Berwickshire, Scotland, three sightings. Pembrokeshire, Wales, one sighting_ so and so forth until Isa got to Northamptonshire, England, seven sightings. It was a number that stuck out compared to the others.

Isa paused at the drawn image of a Firebreather out on the middle of a field under a full moon. It had a tail of fire that had set the field ablaze. The monstrous creature held a body ripped in half in one hand, a screaming farmer in the other, its jaw unhinged to fit half a person.

Isa’s demon hadn’t looked like this.

“Saïx.”

“Don’t call me that.” Isa flipped over to the next page. “Surely we’ve been through enough to use our real names with each other.”

Xemnas scoffed.

“Isa is just too innocent a name for you, don’t you think?”

“What are you accusing me of now?” Isa smiled as if amused. It deepened Xemnas’ frown.

“Went to the Red Lion last weekend.”

“Really?” Isa tapped one foot in the air, aware of how the movement made his robe slide down his thigh enough to be scandalous. “You know word spreads fast. At this rate, Lady Aqua might actually think you've got an inclination for men, and not just desperate for a willing doppelganger. These pictures don't do my Firebreather any justice, I must say.”

“I found three great minds drowning their sorrows at the Red Lion. Guess what they had in common.” Xemnas’ voice was sharp, like he was about to make a grand revelation.

“I’m sure you’ll tell me whether I guess or not.”

His voice was too indifferent, Isa realized that at the sound of protest from Xemnas’ chair when he threw himself back, short of crossing his arms.

“Why do you toy with people’s feelings and leave their heads a right mess?”

“We’ve been through this.” Isa looked up from the notes. “It amuses me. They don’t know how lucky they are to be able to feel so deeply about something. Do you know what it’s like to be so full of sorrow that you have to drink yourself to oblivion and make an ass out of yourself?”

“I do. It’s not a great place to be.”

“Can you get to the point then? This is hardly news to you, so why does it matter now?”

“All three of them were students of mine. One of which was starting their doctorate this semester. He could barely look at me. I only ask that you at least stay away from my students.”

“Why don’t you get female students?”

“Isa.”

“The horns on this picture are just plain wrong.”

“I’m trying to talk to you about something important.”

“I heard you,” Isa said in sing-song and wiggled his head to go along with the melody. “I won’t lay a finger on your students and save you the awkward morning confrontations when they inevitably find you in bed with me.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“Someone has to, Professor. You’re much too revered at your department, too enamored with your own voice and ideas. It does you well to see the light of admiration extinguished and replaced with unadulterated fury, envy, and irreparable hurt.”

Isa looked up once more when Xemnas fell into silence and found him staring thoughtfully. Xemnas rubbed his chin. Perhaps he counted to ten before realizing that he was holding his breath, and then he sighed. He chuckled, defeated, and looked off to the side like he expected a third person to join him.

“I forget sometimes that you don’t really know what you’re talking about. You’re stuck in a play. Nothing is real to you.”

“It will be soon enough. The Travellers will be well outside the city tonight. Tomorrow they’ll set up a show. You and I will be there.”

“Not with the Fog at our heels. Any other time, sure, but this is–”

Isa picked up Lady Aqua’s invitation and put it to his nose. The perfume was weaker than the blue light.

“To Lord Saïx and darling Professor Xemnas,” Isa began. “It would be my honor to have you as guests to _Cirque Macabre’s_ London show.”

Xemnas wet his lips. “Darling Professor?”

“If you play your cards right.”

“So she didn’t write that?”

“Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. She seemed awfully attached to you at Doctor Even’s dinner party. I bet you’ve done unspeakable things to the coat you wore that night, until her perfume no longer lingered on the fabric?”

Xemnas sunk his head into his hands as if trying to remember that night of the dinner party and see what Isa claimed to have seen. Had Lady Aqua been awfully attached? Well, compared to how she was normally. And that was enough. In Xemnas’ memory it became what he wanted it to be, and there was no doubt in Isa’s mind that as soon as they were done here, Xemnas would run back to his flat and rummage through his wardrobe like a loon for the coat he’d worn that night.

It was funny, long enough for Isa to crack a smile. It must have made him look kind. Xemnas relaxed at the sight of it, his shoulders dropped from his ears.

“Let’s go then. Tomorrow night. Warn the mayor. I’ll get in touch with the papers.”

  
  


☀☾☀

  


It had taken a few years to realize that his heart wasn’t in the things he set out to do. Success came to Isa like flies to manure, wealth and decadence followed. He should’ve been over the moon. Instead he found himself desperately searching for thrills, a sustained emotion of any kind to make certain he was alive. The Firebreather had failed to state all the details of their contract, of how easy he’d make it to yearn for whatever it was they had shared, and how he, as a consequence, would become Isa’s raison d’être.

Isa looked at himself in the mirror to straighten the bone white cravat he’d chosen to go with the blue and gray patterned vest of silk. A perfect fit. He wanted to look his best for the devil that had made him.

“Blue to match your red,” Isa said to the large painting decorating the wall across from his bed.

It was the most faithful rendition of what he had seen the night his life had changed. What he thought he had seen. He had paid top coin for it. 

"What a macabre creature to have on your wall," Xemnas had been quick to say upon seeing it. As much as he listened, questioned, and noted, Xemnas had no idea what this life was like. A thing without senses, fumbling down a dark tunnel in hopes he’d brush against sharp edges for the comfort of validation.

Maybe Isa’s past life had been the same. It was hard to tell. Memories faded easily without the association with emotion, and he hadn’t been keen to maintain them until there wasn’t much to salvage.

“You’ve seen his face then?”

Isa blinked. This wasn’t his room. The outside passed them by rapidly. He caught a gaunt couple boarding up their windows and two young lads pushing a cart down the street full to the brim with stolen planks of wood. The streets were dark with moisture, but it hadn’t rained for at least three days.

Isa was sitting across from Xemnas in a horse-drawn coach, on their way out of the city.

“Isa?”

“I lost time.”

“Just now?”

Xemnas leaned back to dig for his notebook in the inside pocket of his plain coat. He flipped it open, took note of the time on his watch, and began to scribble.

“I was in my bedroom, getting ready – I was talking to the painting, and then, here.”

“Fascinating. I didn’t even suspect it this time. There were a few less quips than usual, but I thought it was just too much anticipation.”

Xemnas put his notebook away and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

“I was asking you about whether you had seen the Firebreather’s face. You’re usually determined that you didn’t. A shadow that became a maze of fire. But when you saw the drawings, you said it did him no justice. Is the painting in your room what you saw then?”

“What’s it matter?”

“It matters because if you saw a human face, you met a Firebreather in the making.”

“And?”

“And?” Xemnas repeated with a laugh. “I’ve _glimpsed_ two Firebreathers in my entire career – both times in the Midlands – heard of only five sightings in my lifetime, and no one, then or now, has taken to describing one like you have. They are rare, the youngest are centuries old, most have wandered the Earth for millenia, and all have cast their human forms away if there ever was any to begin with.”

“But it has no bearing on us finding him or voiding the contract, does it?”

“There’s an old wives’ tale about how to banish a Firebreather–”

“I don’t want to banish him.”

“You’re not going to make friends with a demon.”

“He seemed friendly.”

“Isa, he will tear you limb from limb before making friends ever crosses his mind.” Xemnas licked his lips nervously. “Tell me you’re not planning on striking a conversation with the demon if he makes an appearance.”

“What would you suggest I do while you’re preparing the ritual? Five minutes, was it? Did we bring the salt by the way? I have no memory of getting it.”

Xemnas sunk his face into his hands and rubbed it with badly hidden frustration.

“We brought the salt.”

“Look.”

Isa pointed ahead. The Travellers had taken over a small grassy field. Three striped tents in red and white stood ready for tonight’s show. Big torches burned around the perimeter. The entrance to the large tent was peeled back in preparation for the guests, most of which had already arrived if one was to judge by the line of coaches waiting down the road.

Isa squinted to make out the faces of the people he saw, but his sight failed him. Their faces were a blur until they got much closer.

“A pair of glasses are overdue, don’t you think?” Xemnas said once Isa leaned away from the window.

“Over my dead body.”

Xemnas stepped out of the coach first. Isa saw him glimpse into the crowd until Isa cleared his throat and stuck his hand out for Xemnas to help him out of the coach. Xemnas pursed his lips as he steeled himself for the theatrics the rest of the evening might entail, as was customary. Isa was well-acquainted with the facial expression and didn’t even try to hide a bemused expression.

Their arrival caught the attention of other guests. Isa hoped it was him holding onto Xemnas’ arm like a possessive wife that urged the whispering on, but experience told him it was much more likely they were scandalized by him attending this event when he hadn’t even acknowledged all other invitations the past week.

“You need to get me a new assistant,” Isa said in a low voice. “At this rate, I’ll make an enemy out of anyone who is somebody.”

“I’ll place an ad in the paper.”

“It can’t just be anyone. It must be someone of renown. Loyal. Discreet.”

“I think you’ve made your way through that lot.”

They bickered quietly and walked ahead, past the whining group that had arrived just minutes ahead of them and were much too preoccupied by the soft soil under their precious shoes to continue.

The torches were lined up in tracks around the tents, like rings on a dart board. The first circle was just torches, Isa paid them no mind. And then they walked past the second circle. The change was immediate. Isa nearly froze in his tracks. Pain. The intangible kind. The soft jab of a thousand needles on his chest, except there were no needles. The pain danced across his skin as if embarrassed by the attention.

Isa knew physical pain. It was centralized to one area, normally it faded within days, some scars were haunted with phantom pains, but nothing like this, invisible, frightening.

“Gentlemen!” Lady Aqua greeted them.

There it was. The one voice Isa could have done without for the entire evening.

Isa scrunched his nose at her outfit as soon as he saw Lady Aqua: the tight riding breeches, high leather boots, the marine blue short coat embroidered with _Epiphyllum oxypetalum_ , or, as Lady Aqua preferred to call it, though Isa categorically refused, Queen of the Night.

“At long last, the _Cirque Macabre_ for London. I thought we would never get the chance with the constant and cruel displacement of the poor Travellers. You almost made me look a fool in front of everyone, Lord Saïx.”

“You don’t need my help with that, Lady Aqua.”

Xemnas laughed nervously. He tried to peel Isa’s hand off his arm discreetly, or to have Isa loosen his iron grip.

“Lord Saïx is a bit testy after having lost a marvelous assistant. We are both delighted to be in your company, Lady Aqua. This is the invitation of a lifetime.” Xemnas put on his most charming voice and even bowed his head lightly, arm across his chest for good measure.

“Say, Lady Aqua,” Xemnas began, “how did you manage to invite us all? It would take an incredibly knowledgeable and powerful sorcerer, not to mention brave, to invite this amount of people to a spectacle generally reserved for specters. I would love to meet him.”

Lady Aqua shrugged elegantly. “A woman must keep her secrets, Professor.”

“Of course,” Xemnas nodded. A bit too deeply for Isa’s taste.

Isa almost reminded Xemnas loud and clear that it wasn’t the Queen he was dealing with, but he was caught in a whirlwind of wanting to apologize for his quip and slap the condescending look out of Lady Aqua’s eyes.

Lady Aqua had married into the Mayfair’s. It was a scandal at the time. She was a nobody. No family, no reputable friends, a week’s wages to her name. They were mirror images of each other in many ways, Isa and Aqua, except Aqua had killed her demon after signing her contract, and tossed him in the Thames.

“Sad to hear that you are in a bit of mood, Lord Saïx.” Lady Aqua said. “I hope this place cheers you up. This is a place of wonder, after all. Leave all your troubles behind and follow me.”

They headed towards the tent. Music spilled from it. Accordion, trumpet, and dissonant strings. The melody seemed to twist the ground underneath them like a nightmarish fever dream.

“Professor, I read your article about salt,” Lady Aqua slowed down to walk beside Xemnas. “How deposits of it relate to branches of the Yggdrasil, salt as pillars of protection to us. It was a fascinating read. When do you think you’ll go on an expedition? I would love to come along.”

“Well, Lady Aqua, there are plans for an expedition, but – Isa, you’re hurting my arm,” Xemnas turned to whisper to Isa, smile still plastered on his face.

“I think…” Isa began with a gulp. He dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief he pulled from a pocket on his vest. “I think I’m jealous.”

“That’s rich,” Xemnas huffed, but his face fell almost immediately upon realization. “Oh! This is monumental. Lady Aqua, please, give us a moment, we’re making great strides.” Xemnas dug frantically for his notebook. “Spare me no details.”

Isa told him what he had noticed on their way, the childish anger that washed over him when Lady Aqua appeared as she did. Isa said nothing about the mirror images, the words didn’t seem to want to form. There was fear. Fear for his image, what Xemnas might think of him if he admitted too much. Fear was an emotion as well. It was one he was intimately familiar with. The rush came with associations, quick flashes of washed out memories. A wall of rock and pebbles that caved. The subsequent sound of a rock squashing a workmate’s head like an overripe strawberry.

Isa inhaled slowly and counted to ten for the exhale. There was nothing gentlemanly about being sick in company.

Lady Aqua didn’t move from where she was. She waited, listened, without a doubt, in hopes to catch sordid details about Isa’s inner workings.

“Do you still feel it now?” Xemnas asked as he scribbled.

Isa nodded. He glanced in Lady Aqua’s direction to gauge how much she could hear from where she stood. Isa drummed his fingers against his legs impatiently. Nervousness or anxiety. How long it had been since he last caught himself doing this.

“If it had been _it_ that had turned its affections elsewhere, do you think you’d feel the same?” Xemnas seemed to have caught Isa's worry.

Isa heard his breath hitch. It was as if he’d been stabbed with an invisible icicle through his chest. The coldness spread like cracks through feeble ice. Isa shook his head slowly.

“Worse,” he managed to whisper. _I’d combust or collapse into myself. Find a way to set it all ablaze._

“The bell will ring soon. We should take our seats, especially if you want to witness the Fog Specters make their entrance.” Lady Aqua tapped her foot.

“Just one more minute,” Xemnas said with the urgency of a student in the last minutes of an important exam. “Isa?”

“Let’s go,” Isa said, certain he sounded determined, but the sympathetic look on Xemnas’ face – the cautious smile, the softened eyebrows that made all worry wrinkles disappear, the cradling tone of voice – made it clear that Isa was no longer in control of what he projected.

“Are you sure?”

Isa turned on his heels at the question. He was not going to stand there to be pitied, with an audience no less. He went ahead of Lady Aqua and Xemnas with determined steps. 

The circus stood ready, the privileged guests had taken their seats after leaving a small donation in the ragged top hat by the entrance. Lady Aqua guided them to their seats. The seats squeaked with the weight put upon them. The wood was unvarnished, the stuffing was all but gone, they were essentially sitting on a piece of fabric.

Isa crossed his legs and his arms. He wasn’t pouting. There was no dignified way of doing it when he couldn’t hide in the collar of either his coat or shirt. He was just displeased.

Xemnas nudged him.

“Did you get your spine ripped out? Sit up properly.”

Isa had sunken in his seat and had not even taken notice. He couldn’t remember a time where he had sulked like a spoiled two year-old. It wasn’t a great time to start.

The attention was shifted elsewhere when a skinny middle-aged woman in a shimmering dress and a snack box strapped to her chest approached them, jingling with every movement she made. The exaggerated makeup on her face unsettled Isa. She had painted herself white, the pink lipstick was smeared on and around her lips, the dark blue eyeshadow made her eyes seem more sunken in than they already were. It was as if someone had screwed a painted skull on a living body.

_Eye,_ Isa corrected himself. She was missing one.

“Snacks, Your Excellencies? We’ve got popcorn, crisps, candy canes and lollies. Five pence a pop.”

_Shouldn’t you eat it?_ Isa almost asked, but held his gloved hand over his nose and mouth to not breathe the air around her. No person with access to food, however vile, was that thin unless there was sickness involved.

Isa had to close his eyes to quell the wave of nausea at the sight of Xemnas paying the woman for two cones of popcorn and a lollie for the Lady. Xemnas pressed the coin to her palm as if he wanted to make sure their hands touched. He acknowledged her with a look, face uncovered. It was hard to remember if Xemnas always had been that careless or if Isa was more prone to nausea whilst under the influence of the _Cirque Macabre._

Xemnas took notice when the woman wrinkled her nose at Isa. She spat, satisfied to catch Isa flinch in the periphery of her vision judging by her forced laugh. Isa felt Xemnas' admonishing look, but Xemnas said nothing. Isa had already heard it.

_Didn’t you have to lap water from puddles?_ He’d ask whenever Isa got too particular about his wants, too prince-like, as if the life of street rats was unknown to him, and normally it was nothing. Isa would retrieve the memory like the morning paper and toss it aside when it was of no use. It was different now. The memory dragged emotions with it, the indignity, the desperation, the debilitating cramps and fevers that became as common as breathing. It was a morning paper that had landed on dog shit and now the whole house reeked.

Isa tried to steel himself. The Firebreather couldn’t be far away. This would be worth it soon enough.

The lights around the audience dimmed. The invisible band of accordions, trumpets and dissonant strings played an exciting crescendo as five adolescents ran out on the circular stage. They clapped their hands over their heads, lifting their legs as if running but remained on the same spot.

The young man at the front with the messy blond hair was missing his right eye. He wore a black and sparkling patch over it. The young woman next to him with short black hair was missing her left eye. It could’ve simply been a part of the act, but Xemnas had told him about the Travellers from the south who were made to sacrifice an eye to initiate the ritual. Lamentable, but necessary. At least it wasn’t something contagious.

“Enter the specters,” Isa heard Lady Aqua whisper to Xemnas.

Fog seeped in from the back of the stage. Panicked mutterings from first-time members of the audience broke out and the amused laughter of those who had been through this before. This wasn’t the Fog that occasionally took over cities and laid claim on the living. It crackled. It tried to take shape, seemingly urged and enabled by the rhythmic clapping of the young performers.

As soon as the Fog managed to take the shape of thirteen figures, cries and sobs came from the audience. Isa saw an older couple stand up, embracing each other tightly as if to keep one another from running across the stage to where the figures were. The woman gripped a handkerchief tightly and pressed it to her nose.

They saw a loved one in the generic shape of one of the figures. Isa tried to find a discerning feature on any of them, but they were shadows, faceless, they could be anyone or no one. There was only one interesting thing about them; they all had a square-shaped hole in the middle of their chest.

The invisible band played louder, but the muffled cries still made it through the noise. The performers moved on as if unbothered by their weeping audience members. They turned to each other, they ran in mesmerizing patterns, cart wheeled, jumped and somersaulted in the air as if the laws of physics were a choice and not a fact of reality.

Isa was entranced by the maneuvers. To do it all with both eyes was a feat in and of itself, but to attempt it without depth perception boarded on stupidity or complete disregard for one’s life. Perhaps that is what made the display thrilling. One wrong move could be their last.

Isa disregarded the first screams. With mourning people in the audience, a screamer was bound to be among them. He didn’t react to the smell of the burning tent, even the first bolt of fire seemed like a part of the act. It was only when Lady Aqua rose to her feet that it became apparent: something was amiss.

Xemnas grabbed her before she could run.

“No, Lady Aqua– ”

“Let go!” Her voice cracked with panic. She raised a clenched fist as she pulled back, but Xemnas didn’t budge. He fumbled for the bag of salt.

“We have to stand still. If you run, its fire will find you. Trust me, I’m an expert.”

Xemnas made a circle of salt around Lady Aqua with trembling hands. 

Isa hadn’t moved from his seat. His knees felt hollow. If he stood up too quickly, he was going to faint with anticipation. Finally, after years of searching, his plan was coming to fruition. A reunion was imminent.

Pandemonium broke out at the second fire bolt that came crashing from the sky. It brushed the section with the grieving couple and shattered by the scene. Shrapnel spread the fire. it lodged itself in the heads of the performers that fell to the ground without a sound. The horrified screams came from the survivors, the pair with the missing eyes.

The fabric of the tent tore open at the far end. People tried to push through the narrow pathways to the exits only to find their reflections and impenetrable glass.

Isa climbed over the rows of chairs slowly. He had to grip on tightly to not stumble at the guttural roar from the bestial demon that had made an entrance. Each breath came with flames licking the sides of his face. The Firebreather stood at least ten feet tall, dressed in gold and gemstones as if he’d surged through the ground straight through an altar and its offerings. Cracks of magma spread over his torso. The source was where Isa’s heart ought to be. It was the furnace that kept the Firebreather burning.

Isa stumbled ahead. Had it not been for his mission, he would fall to his knees on the spot, weeping with joy at the sight of the Firebreather and the cascade of emotions rushing through him. Instead he positioned himself in the demon’s line of sight.

Isa shivered in the heat of the flames that set five ablaze. One came running past him, a man whose silky garbs turned black, melted against his skin as the man slapped himself to put the flames out.

Isa made a circle of salt around himself and whispered a chant to lead the Firebreather to him and make it known he was here as a friend and not a foe. If worse came to worst, if the demon refused to see reason, he’d be captured and brought back to the mansion. It was a last resort, an option Isa would rather not explore. He wanted the Firebreather to rejoice.

When their eyes met, Isa almost sighed with relief.

The Firebreather paused for a second before he tossed aside whatever was in his hand. He sprinted, destruction seemingly no longer on his mind. Isa felt the unfamiliar warmth of tears run down his face.

_I’ve been missed._

The Firebreather ran past Isa with a desperate growl. He didn’t even pause to make a note of him.

Isa swept around. The eyeless performers were escaping through a tear in the tent, hands clasped tight. The young woman managed one glance back before they ran. The Firebreather followed with a dirge.

Isa remained in a circle of salt, breathing hard. He saw the specters of Fog dissipate behind a wall of tears. The rush rang in his ears, his throat felt raw. His nails dug into the palms of his hands until it ached, and then all turned black.

  
  


Piece above was made by [Flame](https://twitter.com/flamerobber) and depicts the Firebreather Lea at _Cirque Macabre_ enveloped in his wings, skin alight with fire and embers. He is wearing jewels, golden rings on his horns, golden bracelets on scale-covered forearms. In the background Roxas and Xion are running to safety, holding hands. They are wearing an eye-patch each to cover their missing eyes.

Piece above is made by [Avi](https://twitter.com/erkavii) and depicts Isa's first encounter with the Firebreather Lea in the dark alleyway in London. They stand close, like they are about to kiss, but they seem to have been interrupted by the observer. The Firebreather holds a claw under Isa's chin with a coy glance at the observer. The Firebreather's hair is flame-like. Isa is dressed nicely, his hair is long and a darker blue in the dim light of the alleyway. He does not seem to be pleased by the interruption.


	2. Ties That Bind

* * *

**2**

  
  


**Ties That Bind**

  
  


☀☾☀

  
  


Out of the hundred spectators, less than half made it back to London. The Fog lay like a wet blanket over the city. The laments and the distorted figures had the populace in utter fear. All windows and doors had been boarded. Bakers, butchers and grocers had shut down their shops to not venture out on the streets. The mayor had taken to the speaker system to address those who had suffered the unexpected loss and to diplomatically chastise the survivors for breaking a cardinal rule; one mustn’t interact with the Travellers.

Isa cared for none of it. The surface of the world could fall in on itself and sink into Hell for all it was worth. The surge of emotions at the grounds of the _Cirque Macabre_ had left him battered and bruised in ways no demon or angel could mend.

“What do I do now?” Isa had asked Xemnas once they had gotten home.

Isa snivelled. His voice was thick and wavered.

Xemnas hesitated, like he was trying to figure out whether this was real or just a practical joke at his expense.

“I’m sure there’s a spot for you at the Red Lion.”

It had been a joke. Xemnas said it like it was meant to be one; a jab for Isa’s disregard for his students. Any other day, Isa would have managed to mirror the smile and the half-bitter laugh, but he stared, eyes wide at the audacity. Here he was, shattered to pieces, holding himself out to a friend, begging to be put back together before he dissolved like snow in the gutter. A dismissal is what he got.

Isa slapped Xemnas across the face. Hard enough to make the palm of his hand burn. He would’ve preferred a closed fist, but he had the decency to take the worst of it out on the coat rack and the vases on the armoires in the foyer. It had been an embarrassing display.

Isa had run up to his bedroom, and there he stayed for two days, head full of aches and recent memories that called for a good cry from someone who had run dry.

On the third day, Xemnas waltzed in early in the morning, muttering to someone behind him. He paid no attention to Isa’s protest when he pulled the curtains aside to reveal the thick and luminous Fog outside.

_“You’ll burn. All of you.”_

Isa peeked out from under his covers. Xemnas might have set up his what’s-it-apparatus to strengthen individual voices that came from the Fog to jolt Isa out of bed.

_“You’re not destined to be with anybody.”_

“Go on,” Xemnas said. “Leave the tray on the table. Have you set up the bath?”

“Yes, sir,” came Mrs. Graham’s voice from the hallway.

“I thought you had left,” Isa said once Mrs. Graham had gone. Whatever games Xemnas was playing, Isa was not going to give him the satisfaction of acknowledgement.

“The Fog is thick as pea soup. I couldn’t leave if I wanted to.” Xemnas sat down on the armchair with its back to the painting of the Firebreather. “You’ve got a bath waiting.”

“I don’t want one.”

“I never thought you could be this pitiful.” Xemnas rested his head against his hand. He clicked his tongue.

“Life doesn’t cease to surprise, does it?”

“We’re going to Naseby, so you either bathe before we leave, or you ride up front with the horses. I think I’ve managed to track the Firebreather’s origins.”

“Good for you,” Isa muttered and sunk his face into his soft, silky pillow. “I’m not going anywhere. He didn’t recognize me. Didn’t even stop to set me on fire. Have you ever come across such a testimony?” Isa put on a voice, “Yes, sir, the demon killed indiscriminately, and I was in his path, I looked him dead in the eye, but he ran past me like I was a leper… not even a leper, just… like…” Isa felt his bottom lip quiver. He tried to urge it on, to rid himself of the lump in his throat, but nothing would come.

“Is this what you’ve been doing for two days? Theatre and wallowing?” Xemnas sounded disgusted.

“You’ve wallowed.”

“Not for everyone to see.”

“Oh, really?” Isa turned his face away from his pillow to lean over the side of his bed. “I thought the Red Lion was full at all times with your colleagues and students making pitiful scenes due to my whoreson ways. You included.”

“That descriptor has never crossed my lips.”

Isa caught the smirk. He retreated back to his pillow.

“I’ll be plain.”

“You already are.” Isa tried to get a jab in before the moment was gone, but Xemnas ignored him.

“If you don’t come with me, I’ll do whatever I please with the demon once I catch him. You know I won’t be kind. Or you come with me, catch the demon and demand answers.”

Isa had been to the secretive operation theatre in the basement of King’s College and seen what it took to open up creatures, known and unknown alike. Xemnas didn’t make a secret of the exhilaration he felt doing his research; it had been plain on his face, and if not his face then his schedule. No other researcher spent as much time in the operation theatre. Perhaps it was what made Xemnas a prolific researcher.

Part of Isa found comfort in imagining the face of the captured Firebreather upon realizing what the assorted saws were for, but most of him wanted the Firebreather whole, unscathed, and full of adoration.

Isa decided to heed Xemnas’ warning. He bathed in lavender scented water. He brushed and braided his hair, shaved with care, dressed impeccably, and did not forego a few drops of his current favorite eau de cologne: _Violet Delights_. A quick glance in the mirror revealed what he already knew; he was devastatingly gorgeous. It did little to soothe the bruising. Each breath was like inhaling peppermint oil for too long. His chest burned; his throat was a mess of tears and anxiety.

What relief it would be to just reach in and pull it out like a faulty cog in otherwise perfect machinery. Alas, his misery was not tangible, and it remained where it was, coating the insides of his throat and chest, dulling the effect of his mirror image.

Xemnas waited downstairs by the door where the guards had propped up a narrow, fold-out hallway that led to a customized horse-drawn cab for travels in the Fog.

“How did you manage to get Arabian horses?” Isa asked when he peeked out the slit of a window across from him.

“I just said they were for you. That usually solves it.”

Arabian horses, the steed of choice in the golden age of the Egyptian Empire. Xemnas had enjoyed more than one vacation there, on luxury steamboats and private tours of the ruins left by an old civilization. It was a stark contrast to the Egypt Xemnas had known growing up. With the choice of transport left to him, of course he’d pick Arabian horses to go with a dark and severe cab made to look as if Death himself rode it. It drew the eye of the living and the dead.

Even with such enduring horses at their disposal, they had to make a stop halfway to change both horses and cab if they wanted to make it to Northampton before nightfall.

Isa tried to nap. There was a particular weight over his eyes, the kind that came after long bouts of crying, except he had done nothing of the sort. It was unsettling. Coupled with the bumps on the road and the beating his bottom was taking, it had been near impossible for sound sleep. Instead he was caught somewhere in the middle. The voice he had heard in the morning seemed to flourish in this realm of in-between sleeping and waking. It oscillated between mockery and despair, belligerent in its search for the ultimate hurtful thing to say.

_“You’ll die as you lived ‒ in obscurity.”_

The voice came from a dark room, past a door that stood ajar. Isa held onto it. He caught the voice only because he had peeked inside, because he had opened a door meant to stay locked.

_“Why does everyone else have one? Everyone except me! Murderers, philanderers, scum of the Earth ‒ all of them tied to someone. A forever someone. And I? Am I just here to observe?”_

The voice was agitated. Its words bounced off the walls of darkness inside. One creak from the door was all it took to silence the voice.

Whatever was inside didn’t want to be seen. The door began to pull away from Isa’s grasp. Isa clung to it, blinked, and in that split second a figure materialized in the door spring. One without a face.

It slashed Isa across the face.

The door slammed shut and startled Isa awake.

The world was an array of color spots, the shaking of the cab didn’t help him to orient himself. Isa placed his trembling hand over his forehead. The words had pierced through skin and flesh just as well as the figure's claws.

“Nightmare?” Xemnas asked.

“Am I bleeding?” Isa touched his forehead over and over to glance at his hand for traces of blood.

“Bleeding? No.” Xemnas leaned closer. “You’re fine. Why would you be bleeding?”

“I think I can hear ghosts. Maybe I’m possessed. A nasty thing attached itself to me at the circus. It's rummaging through my head like it wants something to steal.” Isa cursed the way his voice still wavered.

“You can’t hear ghosts,” Xemnas said with an ill-feigned cough to hide a chuckle. He leaned back and picked up his book. “And you’re not possessed.”

“What am I then?” Isa demanded.

The world was clear to him again. Xemnas sat with the book in his lap, finger between the page he was on and the next, pen in the other hand.

“Wounded. Take it from someone who has had the ability to feel for the past decade. Heartbreak comes with side effects.”

“I’m not heartbroken,” Isa frowned at the sympathetic expression on Xemnas’ face. He preferred the tone of disgust from before. “I’m… I’m upset. A little disappointed maybe. Just keep your machinery ready in case I start to project the voice of a soldier from the Civil War.”

“You won’t.”

They passed the Northampton Castle station well past sunset. The train would have been the preferable mode of transportation, but no trains, boats or cabs were allowed in or out of London for as long as the Fog laid thick. 

Isa hid a yawn behind a gloved hand. He rolled his neck and shook his shoulders. The struggle against sleep was rarely a fight he won, but the sting of his forehead kept him alert to any prolonged blinking.

“Are you going to tell me what the plan is?” Isa asked.

“I was just waiting for you to ask. I’m surprised it took this long. Wallowing really is all consuming, isn’t it?”

“You’re taking too much enjoyment out of this. It’s not funny.”

“Will you slap me again?” Xemnas teased.

“I might, if you keep pushing. Just tell me what the plan is.” Isa crossed his arms tightly. He shuddered like he was cold, but it was an attempt to get rid of the vulnerability that clung to him like mud to boots.

"My theory is that your Firebreather is a newly made demon, and I've worked based on that assumption. I've traced back sightings and places of rituals. Naseby fits. All my findings fit except for one thing _‒_ the name he gave you."

Isa closed his eyes as he drew a shaky breath to steady himself in the ever-swaying cab.

"Great.” Isa forced a small smile. “So all of it was a lie, is that what you're saying?"

"I've told you countless times, Isa, he didn't approach you to be friends."

Isa turned to face the window. He bit on the inside of his lower lip. The lump of tears ghosted in his throat and stayed there. _Quelle surprise._ Xemnas had been right to call him pitiful. Had his heart been with him, he would have cried at every turn.

"I don't have his real name," Xemnas continued, "but once we do, finding him will be much easier."

They stopped on a road wide enough to fit the cab, right outside an old, white building with torches on each side of a narrow door.

“The Old Cherry Tree,” Xemnas said as soon as they were both on steady ground. “It’s been around since 1576, even before the Civil War…”

Isa didn’t hear the rest. He walked down the road at the sight of two statues on a sorry patch of grass at the crossroads. The statues stood close. They were holding hands, Isa came to discover once he was close enough. What had caught his attention was the hole on both of their faces where an eye should be. Isa pondered whether the world could really be so small that he would come across the statues of Travellers he had seen on a nondescript field far away.

Xemnas caught up with him. He was drawn to the small plaque behind the statues.

“Roxas and Xion, may your feet outrun the Devil. Save your souls as you did ours.” Xemnas tapped a finger against the carved text. “What do you reckon the Ethics Committee would say if I presented them with an apology like this one?”

“You’d hang by your neck first thing next morning. I don’t think they have Ethics Committees in these parts, however, and if they do, they’re the same people who gouge childrens’ eyes out for rituals.”

Xemnas laughed.

“You really do sound miserable. Will I have to watch you tonight to make sure you don’t get lost in the moors, Catherine?”

“Your names for me get more and more insulting.” Isa turned to hide his pout. He walked back to The Old Cherry Tree with Xemnas right behind.

“You did manage to change Psyche to Saïx, which is a real loss. Lord Psyche would have fitted you better. Your peers were of the same mind until you threatened to withdraw funds.”  
  
“Lovesick and tragic maidens,” Isa muttered.

“Psyche did get her love in the end.” A weak attempt to save himself.

“In Heaven,” Isa retorted. “Or the afterlife. As did Catherine. Is that where you think I’m headed?”

“I hope not.” Any tone that suggested jest disappeared, and Xemnas said solemnly, “Life would be awfully dull without you.”

Isa wished he could bring himself to slap Xemnas then, if only to distract from the knot at the base of his throat threatening to dissolve into the tears Isa had been trying to force out all day. Instead he crossed his arms and made an effort to be pleasant company for the rest of the evening.

  
  


☀☾☀

Isa had a restless night. The voice came back as soon as Isa closed his eyes. Sleep gripped him, transformed the glimpses of his bedroom to worn, wooden hallways out in the middle of endless moors far away from Northampton. The hallways laid exposed to the elements. He had been here before. The hallways emitted regular thumps like muffled water drops hitting a half-full pot in an empty Sacré-Cœur.

_“Stay where you are. Don’t come any closer.”_

The Fog laid thick out in the distance. The voice was too close to come from the cluster of spectres hidden in the Fog. _He’s in one of the rooms_ , Isa thought despite the evidence that there would only be moor behind any and all doors.

Isa tried every door he came across. Shattered doors, small doors, large doors, until he found himself by a door with a key in its lock, ajar as if the last person to close it had done it in a rush.

“ _Create our bond. Bind our fates. Make us walk life as one. Let me reach their heights so we may never be apart.”_

It was a familiar voice. Thick, hoarse, the voice of someone who had wept and wailed. Isa thought he recognized it, except when he had heard it the first time it had come with the occasional hiss of water to flames.

_I’ve been here before._

The voice pulled Isa into the room with the same vigor sleep had gripped him with, and dragged him into a small, wall-less room with narrow bookshelves and a desk. Isa was transported, made into something metaphysical to fit into the body standing by a humble desk.

The thumps became palpitations here. The water drops fell from greater heights into an overflowing pot in a Sacré-Cœur before mass. The sound bounced off the walls and columns with such strength the mosaic windows cracked. The steady whispers of worshipers became frightened gasps, one after the other, until it was all Isa could hear. Isa tried to lift his hand to his chest to rummage in his ribcage and silence whatever had found refuge in the heartshaped void, but the body he inhibited took no orders.

The voice took over. It guided Isa's attention to the task at hand.

Isa read from a worn and leather-bound book that stood propped up across from him. He stirred crimson liquid in a chalice with a sculptured silver stick with one hand, and placed two golden picture frames on a circle drawn on the desk.

It was of the two Travellers that had escaped the Firebreather that night, the statues outside the inn, the saviors of souls doomed to run forever. That life seemed like a tragedy far into the future for the young faces in the photographs.

Isa shivered. Each breath he took became heavier until his lips barely formed around the desperate spell.

“ _Create our bond. Bind our fates. Make us walk life as one. Let me reach their heights so we may never be apart.”_

Excitement. Anticipation. Not a sliver of regret. He was mending a broken system. He was creating fate. It had to be fate for them. Them: the future Travellers and whoever steered Isa into action. If it wasn’t fate, then it meant that any one of them could leave at any moment, choose something that wasn’t ordained. In such a world, he’d be left behind.

And so, they took a dagger, ornate silver like the chalice, and placed the sharp edge against the palm of their hand.

The voice hesitated. It gulped to wet a dry throat. Isa watched with fascination, eager for the sting of the cut he knew would awaken him.

The circle on the desk burned blue upon the first drops of blood inside. Each drop splattered on the picture frames, the dried herbs, and the small dead animals. They placed the chalice within the circle. The blue erupted into a blinding white light.

The specters howled as they poured into the room in an invisible tornado. It grew into a deafening cacophony that was nothing short of claustrophobic in a room this size.

Isa pressed his hands against his ears. From within his head, the voice spoke.

_“No one knew…. They thought it was fate, and there was nothing else I could do once the spell was complete. I didn’t want to be alone.”_

The wall-less room sunk into the moor and took the spectres with it. The silence that followed buzzed in Isa’s ears. The moors were vast, Isa remembered that much, but he never thought they would be vast enough to make him lose his way between the sunken room and the hallways. 

Isa listened for the voice, but it fell silent, disappeared as if it had never been there at all.

“I can do this,” Isa said out loud while he turned to orient himself. “I’ve been lost in tunnels and found my way back. This is nothing.”

Isa held his hands out as if there would be a wet cave wall to lean against as he made his way forward. But there was nothing, only thick fog, specters, and endless moor.

Isa waved his arms to make the Fog disperse, but it barely made a difference. He couldn’t even see his arms or his legs.

Isa heard himself whimper.

When lost in the tunnels there was always something to guide you outside; a rope, torches, sounds, walls. There was a limit to every tunnel; the moor knew no limits. All Isa could hear was the ocean in the distance. All Isa could imagine was the one misstep that would send him down the side of the cliff and into the depths where no one would hear his last screams for help.

Perhaps the Firebreather led him out here on purpose. No demon wanted the watchful eyes of a mortal on them. Xemnas had made the Firebreather's intentions clear: it had only wanted a heart, not a second shadow. The reasonable thing to do was to accept it, but Isa was not a reasonable man.

Faint flames flickered to his left. Isa was drawn to it like a moth.

_“You saw me when no one else could.”_

A firebolt colored the Fog red, orange and purple. It came with the regular thuds of a weary heart in tow, followed by a splash of impact.

_“I owe you nothing. We made a pact. I fulfilled my end of it.”_

The voice had moved ahead. There was more vitriol than gratitude in the Firebreather’s last statement, a gruffness that hadn’t existed in the body Isa had possessed or in the voice that had been extinguished with fire.

Embers danced through the Fog and swirled around Isa like specters. Mesmerized and delighted, Isa tried to touch them. _Being a fool sometimes does not make one a fool all the time,_ Isa thought and scrunched his nose at the clumsy feeling of English. _On n'est point toujours une bête pour l'avoir été quelquefois._ The embers swirled closer as if drawn in by the language that had come naturally to Isa when he was younger. Perhaps they were privy to his thoughts in this dreamscape that was equal parts nightmare and fever dream.

Every ember that made contact burned through his clothing. A demon's idea of foreplay - Axel's flames had not hurt him that one time. But these embers knew not when to stop. They kept burning past the layers of silk, through skin and flesh, drilled themselves into his bones. They set his skin alight from within to reveal the etched contract. It stung worse than the cut to the palm of his hand. They kept burning past the contract and nestled into his bone marrow.

One breath would turn Isa into a bonfire.

_“Your search for me ends here. I have nothing for you.”_

The voice clung to him. It lay cradled in Isa’s chest, a comforting presence amidst its cruelty. Isa fell to his knees. He gasped for the air in his body that the fire used to spread.

The Firebreather screamed out in pain. Isa thought it had been him, but his lungs were full of invigorated flames.

Xemnas would find him in the morning, burnt to a crisp. If there was anything to gather from the body he left behind, it would be the contract in the Firebreather’s language. Xemnas would have to continue on the quest alone _‒_ alone with plenty of time to let his thoughts fester onto revenge to counter the dullness a life without Isa would constitute.

_I’ll survive this, demon. Not for my sake, but yours. Should anyone find you but me, you would be torn limb from limb in the name of science._

Isa didn’t expect an answer. The Firebreather could have left to continue the pursuit of the Travellers. It did not seem to harbor any goodwill for Isa.

The low growl betrayed it. Isa heard how each heavy step struck the earth when it dashed through the Fog to Isa.

The Firebreather leaned over him, bared his teeth that made him more beastly than Isa remembered. Isa could hear the Firebreather’s heartbeat as if it was his own. This was not the same creature that had drawn him into that room; this is what had come through whatever portal they had opened. It wanted nothing close, not even the fire it burned with.

As if privy to Isa’s observations, the Firebreather roared. Isa saw the flamed hand come at him. A claw caught the skin of his forehead. It cut through like the dagger had done, over the slash Isa had sworn he had gotten in the cab.

Blood dripped onto him from above.

Once lit aflame, a scratch, however foul, couldn’t possibly add or take away from the pain. Isa was certain it would do nothing as his vision turned red, but it stung ferociously. He blinked the blood out of his eye to see Xemnas pull the curtains open.

“I found the demon’s home.”

 _I'd lap water from puddles to save myself_ , Isa found himself thinking in the second it took for Xemnas to turn to him.

“Xemnas…” Isa gasped. “Help… me…”

The contract on his hands and forearms burned brightly. Isa tried to wet his chapped lips, but his tongue was dry. He wasn’t conscious long enough to see or hear Xemnas’ reaction. Isa fainted, worried that he would, perhaps, get lost in the moors forever this time.

It was still morning when Isa came to, maybe noon, maybe a mere five minutes later. His face and neck were moist with water like someone had just finished dabbing him with a cloth. It wasn’t Xemnas. Isa couldn’t smell his citrusy cologne, but felt the side of the bed dip as this third person turned to get on their feet.

“He looks better,” said Lady Aqua. “Most of the burns have receded. All that is left to do is wait. Unless you take him back to London. He would be more comfortable there.”

“I cannot,” Xemnas was quick to answer. Lady Aqua must have suggested it countless times before. “We are here on a mission. He would have my head if this trip turned out to be for nothing.”

“Rather he have your head and be alive than for him to die out here in the middle of nowhere, no? Whatever you are chasing is evidently dangerous. But,” Lady Aqua stopped herself and sighed, “I was not invited to mother you, and I have no intention to make it a habit.”

“You are merely showing concern for our well-being. I appreciate it. Truly, I do.”

It was a loaded silence that followed, the kind that told of people losing themselves in sparkling eyes and soft lips. Xemnas had wished for such a silence with Lady Aqua for quite some time. For a few seconds, Isa entertained the idea that Xemnas might be behind last night’s nightmare and kill two birds with one stone; study the contract that had until recently been invisible to them all, and to make use of the nice and quiet countryside to finally woo Lady Aqua.

Lady Aqua’s awkward and disappointed “Right,” cleared things up for Isa. Xemnas had missed a perfect opportunity.

“I should go downstairs. I will wait for my cab there,” said Lady Aqua.

“Lady Aqua, if I may?”

“Yes?”

“Would you like to accompany me to the opera when I get back? I have yet not seen _Parsifal._ ”

“Yes, the one about the Holy Grail? Wagner’s, isn’t it? I would love to. Let me know when you get back to London.”

Maybe a kiss followed after that. Maybe Xemnas stared after Lady Aqua like a lovesick loon. Isa couldn’t care either way when whatever remained of the burns began to ache under the light weight of the blankets. Isa tried to hold his breath to not disturb their moment, but it did nothing to diminish the pain.

He must have made a sound. The door closed and Xemnas was at his side, speaking too quietly to make it past the ringing in Isa’s ears. The small pinch in his arm went by unnoticed until the burning diminished into a distant numbness.

“What did you give me?” Isa mumbled.

“Morphine.”

“Feels pleasant.”

“You had me worried sick. What happened?”

“I met the Firebreather in a dream. Romantic, no? Not as romantic as whatever happened between you and Lady Aqua. How did she get here so fast?”

“Fast? You have been unconscious for almost a week. I had to ask for her to bring a competent physician and additional funds for our extended stay.” Xemnas whispered like he expected the innkeeper to be eavesdropping.

“Do you remember how I despaired when the Firebreather ran past me without brutalizing me even a little? Well, my wish was granted, and if the purpose of this incident was to discourage me from voicing my wishes, I would say, mission accomplished. I’ve known pain I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”

“In that case, I have bad news.”

“I don’t see how you could make that any worse. Is this where I open my eyes to see the mirrors covered in sheets? Will you ask me to wear a mask for my sake and others? Are my days as the main topic at the Red Lion behind me?”

“I read the contract.”

“Could you put me at ease first and tell me whether I can look at myself in the mirror again or not?”

“Your face is fine.” Xemnas sighed, clearly frustrated. “You bleed from your forehead sometimes, but Isa, there is something else that is much more severe.”

“Out with it then.” Isa touched the space between his eyebrows, but pulled his hand away as soon as he made contact. He tried to not make too much of a grimace to not upset the wound that was there and as fresh as if the Firebreather had just slashed him open.

“The contract binds you both, heart, body, and soul. Your lives. If one dies, the other follows. For him, as long as he is a demon, but you are bound regardless of what he is.”

Isa forced his eyes open.

“Really?”

Isa’s response, the intonation, the hopefulness, transformed Xemnas’ face of concern and anguish to one of utter disbelief.

“What is wrong with you? He almost incinerated you.”

“He seemed to be of two minds about it.”

Xemnas suppressed a smile behind his hand. There was something about Isa's naïve confidence or utter lack of self-preservation that had always managed to tickle Xemnas. It quickly turned into a quiet laugh, the kind that made his shoulders shake.

“Mind the bed,” Isa said like he had been mildly inconvenienced. “My flesh might come clean off my bones with too much movement.”

“God help us.” Xemnas exhaled once his laughing fit passed. He rubbed his eyes. “Listen, this Firebreather must have been a sorcerer or something before turning. People don’t just become demons with dream penetrating abilities. Before we do anything else, we must find a way to undo the contract.”

“Are there any other options?”

“Isa, your _life_ is _bound_ to him. If he lives to be a thousand years old, you will be, too. Does that not frighten you?”

“I don’t know…”

Isa tried to find a seed of doubt within him, but the longer the silence stretched, the more he was convinced that the Firebreather had been afraid of their encounter. The human left inside had bared himself to Isa; he had stretched his hand out against all odds and begged to be raised from perdition. Either Isa saved him or was pulled into the same circle of Hell. No other option existed. Any quantifier to time struck him as something of no consequence.

Isa still wanted the Firebreather.

The uncertainty in Xemnas’ face, however, urged him to be merciful with his honesty, and he did something he hadn’t done in quite some time; he lied.

“I’m a bit frightened. If I don’t seem like it, it’s because I trust you will find a loophole for us.”

Despite his best efforts, it hadn’t been the right thing to say.

It took another two days before the rest of the contract receded back into invisibility. The aches and burns the Firebreather had left Isa with had faded enough to move about. He could join Xemnas for breakfast downstairs. There was little time to speak of anything but possible solutions to the contract etched into Isa.

“We will have to dig up his body,” Xemnas said quietly. “He is just bones at this point, I imagine. A sack will do. We will burn his remains.”

“What will that do?”

Xemnas tapped his fingers against the table restlessly.

“Frankly, I don’t know. According to some unsubstantiated sources that will effectively kill a demon, if they were humans at one point, but those cases are rare, and even fewer cases are recorded. It… it’s either the one solution, or it will just serve to upset the demon further.”

“I don’t want him to die. I’ve already told you.”

Xemnas shook his head, a sardonic smile on his face.

“I wasn’t going to kill the demon. I mean, I was until I read the contract. We have to try something. Maybe he will come to us if we dig his bones up. You can make a new deal, change the conditions. You didn’t go for more morphine, did you?”

“Is there more?” Isa asked coyly.

“Drink your tea. We have to leave soon if we want time for interrogations and to dig for remains all in one day.”

The trip wasn’t long. Compared to the trip to Northampton, it was nothing. The trees grew in clusters on open fields that stretched for miles. It was a frightening sight, more so than the most cursed streets of London. There was no doubt who would be your foe in the city, what he would look like, what he would want; out there in the vast fields it could be anything. Demons, ghosts, beasts. The ground could swallow you whole and no one would know.

Dark clouds gathered over Naseby. By the time Xemnas and Isa made it to their destination, it was drizzling. They turned heads as Xemnas led them through the small village. Isa liked to think it was his impeccable taste in fashion that caught the villagers’ attention, or worse, perhaps his newly acquired scar was visible to these countrymen, but even with a flesh wound, he was a common sight in comparison to Xemnas in these parts. 

There was rarely a shortage of ignoramuses on their trips, in and out of London alike. Men and women so full of venom it splashed everywhere when they laid eyes on Xemnas. A case of devil’s tongue, Isa had called it until Xemnas ceremoniously told him that no devil he had come across had used his origins to insult him.

It had been easier to address the issue after that. If devils could behave, so could god-fearing people. Isa had taken a medium with a particularly wicked tongue to task, not because Isa felt insulted on Xemnas' behalf ‒ he had been unable to at the time ‒ but rather because the medium’s place in the world seemed to be head-down in the Thames. An easy fix of the devil’s tongue, Isa had found. It would be infinitely more difficult to attempt such a thing here, so far away from the guards that dirtied their hands on Isa's orders.

As long as the villagers kept to staring and nothing else, all was well.

It was hard to say if Xemnas took note of the attention. They might as well be walking down Cheapside judging by his face.

“Have you noticed the oddities in this village?” Xemnas asked.

“I’m not blind.”

“Either someone is very good at flogging trash or the protection charms were issued by the church.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The protection charms. They hang by the entrance or they have been etched by the windows. Look.”

Xemnas nodded toward a building.

Isa caught an old woman and a child peek from behind the curtains before he took notice of the star-shaped protection charms and the ropes tied to the walls for those caught outside in the Fog.

“What will those things do?”

“Give the villagers enough time to run or give them a one second warning if unwanted visitors get stuck in them." Xemnas shrugged. "I don’t know, to be honest. I cannot imagine a village like this would be able to afford strong protection charms in this quantity.”

Xemnas was right. The most basic measures like the red-stained glass around electric lights by doors and windows were nowhere to be seen. The red had proven over and over again to be effective in luring specters away from those who found themselves caught in the Fog. This lot had opted for protection charms that might give them a three second head start.

Xemnas and Isa made it past the large cross at the old market place. The cross was to remember those who had died in the plague, according to Xemnas. Isa shuddered. He distanced himself from it as if bits of plague clung onto it, waiting for someone else to infect and kill.

They made it to a small square, past a watchmaker. Xemnas pointed to where the Battle of Naseby had taken place, had they taken a left turn. Isa couldn’t bring himself to care, but he nodded along until, finally, they found what they were looking for.

“There it is,” Xemnas pointed to a small shop amidst red brick buildings. “Charles Ferris, baker and father of one Lea Ferris.”

Isa’s breath hitched. _Lea Ferris. His real name. He exists. Existed._ Isa hadn’t thought to ask Xemnas for the name upon waking. It was something he would wait for the Firebreather to reveal to him. If the name had been a secret at their first encounter, it was a secret now - should have been. It wasn’t anymore.

“We’re going to ambush him at work?” Isa cleared his throat.

“I’m sure he will be thrilled with our business.”

A small bell rang when they opened the door to the small shop. A middle-aged man came out to greet them. He wrung his hands in his apron to rid himself of flour. When he leaned forward, a pendant hanging from a silver chain dropped from under the collar of his shirt. It too was silver, star-shaped. A protection charm closer to his heart than what his neighbors wore.

Time had not favored this man. He had more wrinkles than hair on his head. His upper back curved from either disease or too many hours kneading dough. Isa saw nothing of Lea in this man.

Mr. Ferris’ smile faltered at the sight of them.

“How can I help you, gentlemen?”

“Mr. Charles Ferris?” Xemnas asked. “Father of Lea Ferris?”

Mr. Ferris lost all semblance of color at the name. He wet his lips nervously, gulped as if his throat had gone dry. Mr. Ferris nodded once. It was a firm nod. He lowered his gaze.

“Lea… Lea _was_ my son.”

“I’m Professor Xemnas Gamal, a convert and an investigator for the Vatican. This is Lord Psyche, an investigator in training and an important benefactor in the Vatican’s efforts against the spread of the Fog.”

It wasn’t the first time Xemnas told this tall tale. One would think a person faced with such a presentation would ask for anything to confirm its veracity, but Mr. Ferris nodded again, sweat pearling on his forehead.

“Your son looks nothing like you, Mr. Ferris,” Isa commented. “Does he take after his mother?”

Xemnas tensed.

“Sorry?” Mr. Ferris walked closer to the counter and cupped his ear. “Does, does he…?”

“Does your son take after his mother?” Isa repeated. “You don’t look like you are related.”

“What my friend here is trying to say, albeit in the rudest of ways,” Xemnas cut in, “is whether you are blood-related to Lea Ferris? On account of you saying that Lea _was_ your son, that is. Blood-relations do not cease to be.”

“No, they don’t, unfortunately." Mr. Ferris rolled his jaw like he had taken a punch. "What do you lot want then?”

“We were hoping you could help us find Lea. We have urgent business with him,” Xemnas replied.

Mr. Ferris raised his eyebrows.

“What is the meaning of the star pedant you are wearing, Mr. Ferris?” Isa asked. “It seems a prevalent symbol here.”

“If you are with the church, you ought to know.”

“It doesn’t look like any Christian symbol to me. You are not turning to pagan ways for protection, are you?”

Xemnas grabbed Isa by the arm. It was a gentle grasp, uncertain, to avoid any remaining sore spots. There was none of that in Xemnas’ voice when he ordered Isa to stop meddling.

“Know your place, aspirant. You follow my lead, understood?”

“Apologies,” Isa muttered. He crossed his arms.

Mr. Ferris seemed to loosen his guard as Xemnas confidently took the lead. Xemnas was soft-spoken with Mr. Ferris, an illusion to lull him into a false sense of security and extract information out of him. Isa lacked the patience.

Xemnas convinced Mr. Ferris to close up shop for more shillings than the baker would see in six months' work. It made him amenable for questions about a subject he clearly had avoided for years.

Mr. Ferris lived in a small, white cabin. It was old and rugged, much like its owner. Mr. Ferris had been in his element in the shop. Everything about him fit in with the surroundings, but as soon as they stepped out, Isa recognized the bend in Mr. Ferris’ back to avoid pain elsewhere; he was scrawny, greying; he walked with a slight limp. Either his shoes didn’t fit or something was amiss with his hips. Isa had seen his fair share of cripples digging tunnels, and this man had been through rigorous work.

“Did Lea live here?” Isa asked as soon as they were inside.

“Yes, me, Mrs. Ferris, and Lea. He was spoilt rotten, that lad. Didn’t know how good he had it.” Mr. Ferris shook his head. He held his hand out to a narrow and short hallway. “We built a room for him. My missus was certain he was going to study and work in the city. Lotta good that did us.”

“May I?” Isa asked eagerly.

The man had barely nodded when Isa walked the four steps to the end of the hallway and turned to see an obscenely small study, a pauper’s closet. To be fair, he thought, this was the size of the closets in some of his guestrooms - for the guests that liked to overstay their welcome.

Isa heard Mr. Ferris offer Xemnas ale and bread with cheese, and hoped that Xemnas had the sensibility to decline the cheese unless he wanted to suffer on the four hour trip back to Northampton.

Isa stepped in, eyes drawn by the clutter and disarray on the bookshelves and the desk. He left the door ajar in hopes he’d pay attention to whatever stories Xemnas made the man divulge, but the dust alone was enough to make his mind wander.

_I’ve been here. This is where he set it all in motion._

Isa grabbed the first notebook he could reach. The spellbook he had seen in his dream had to be here somewhere. He was careful to open it. Whatever these were, diaries, spellbooks or practice in cursive handwriting, it didn’t matter ‒ Isa wanted to see it all, know the person the Firebreather had been before all of it had gone amiss.

And what stories the boy Lea Ferris told. Red string tying people together, specters clinging onto life, a curse and a blessing for their loved ones, painful visions of the future - a myriad of futures for all Lea encountered, except for himself.

Isa flickered through a handful, searching for the most recent dates while Mr. Ferris told Xemnas the misery that had befallen his family the day the vicar came to reveal that the Fog demanded Lea to be sacrificed.

Isa diverted his attention from the notebooks to listen until the story became much too familiar and mundane. No one wanted to be sacrificed. It was a tragedy to have one’s life cut short. But Isa had heard plenty of such stories, enough to know every beat by heart. Incredulity that became denial until the townsfolk came one night with torches and pitchforks. Denial became groveling and begging until there was nothing left but to accept fate, as it were.

Isa pulled out the wooden chair and sat down to read each passage more carefully. Lea’s handwriting was good for someone self-taught. He looped the ends of the letters at the end of every sentence. He doodled in the margins, nonsensical things and things related to the tales he told. Gruesome, adorable, extraordinary, and dark things.

Isa held the book at a distance before he brought it closer to his face and squinted.

_March 26th 1863_

_Miss Crescent got upset with me today. I tried to warn her about Mister Hojo. His face is kind, but I saw him kill Miss Crescent and dump her out the train in the dark. She didn’t like that. Miss Crescent scolded me and then my parents in front of everybody in the shop. Mom’s out back crying, dad’s working, no one’s talking to me. Should I just have ignored what I had seen?_

_It felt near. It is going to happen soon. It’d be a shame if she died. She makes great biscuits. If she goes, I’ll have to work more hours in dad’s shop._

_The vicar might help me again if I ask. He did when I told him about Miss Lockheart._

Isa flipped forward. He was willing to believe anything Lea confessed in these notebooks. Lea spoke to the ether. He said in writing what he couldn’t say out loud. There was no reason to lie.

“The lad didn’t react at all when it was time. Said that the vicar had it wrong and that the town would burn if he didn’t keep looking,” Mr. Ferris said.

“Who were the children that were sacrificed instead?” Xemnas voice was warm when he spoke to Mr. Ferris. It had a hypnotizing quality.

“God, they were Lea’s friends.” Mr. Ferris cleared his throat nervously. The sound of him wringing his dry hands travelled with ease. “Both were children of wealthy merchants. They came here for the summer. Their parents were almost stoned to death when they tried to escape with the children. At the time, we were furious. The Fog loomed in the horizon. We hadn’t seen light for a fortnight.”

“Their names, please, Mr. Ferris.”

“Xion Hathersage and Roxas Earnshaw. Good kids. They didn’t seem to give Lea trouble for reaching above his station. Maybe they should have.”

“Are you saying that you would’ve preferred it if it had been Lea who was sacrificed, Mr. Ferris?”

“Yes.”

Isa gave the room a sweeping glance to see if there was a thick and heavy something to throw at Mr. Ferris. The impulse had him nearly drop the notebooks balancing on his lap. He clicked his tongue. Mr. Ferris was lucky that Lea drew such striking doodles. One of two wooden figures caught Isa's attention.

_September 5th 1868_

_I waited for them at the train station. Took a while to get there even though the vicar lent me his best horse. Maybe it was stupid to go, but I couldn’t wait to see them. Roxas gave me a fountain pen and a bottle of ink. Xion gave me mittens and a cap for autumn. I gave them the wooden statuettes. The varnish dried in time. They looked happy with it. That’s all that matters. I’ve rid myself of any other doubts. Or tried to. I can’t see our future together. Try as I might, it won’t come to me. The only futures I want to see, and I can’t seem to get a grasp of it. I should leave it alone. The vicar told dad that whatever demon possessed me as a child has left me alone, and that we’d be allowed back at mass with everyone else. I can’t go back to how I was. So many suffered because of me and my big mouth. But if I’m careful… no one will know. I will create a destiny for myself and my friends. I have to make sure our future is together._

Isa nearly closed his fist on the page to watch it contort and rip in his grip. The lingering burn in his joints made it a difficult task. He left the notebook open on the desk to rummage through the three drawers. Only one was locked. One sturdy pull with both hands made the old lock give way. Lea’s parents must have given him too much time in private, demanded too little of him, if he could get away with hiding things in plain sight. 

Isa took a deep breath to rid himself of the immature and intense sensation of jealousy. Who amongst the living had not had a previous life? It was foolish to be upset by the obvious, but even so, the numerous accounts of Lea Ferris’ time with and affection for his snotty friends filled Isa with ire.

Whilst Isa had been toiling away in the darkness of tunnels and hoping for scraps of anything, Lea Ferris had walked the earth as if Isa didn’t exist; he had attached himself to wealth to not see that he was much closer to a life in the tunnels than a life as a successful merchant.

“Idiot,” Isa muttered at himself. He needed to remind himself of it because his train of thought was nothing short of idiotic.

_We are bound as well, by your choice and mine._

Isa moved the obviously loose bottom of the drawer to reveal a secret compartment underneath. There were cut-outs of photographs of at least three different men from newspapers. Isa snickered. Perhaps he was making wrongful assumptions of their use, but it was hard to imagine they were for anything other than appreciating their appearances in less than savory ways.

Isa was careful to brush the photographs away and take out the leather-bound book underneath. He flipped through the pages with a frown. They were all empty. All but one right at the very middle.

Xemnas' predictions were proving to be right. They were in complicated territory of unknown magic. A misstep could be dire if Isa’s contract did indeed bind him to the Firebreather with his life. He had lived through a demon’s stern warning; he didn’t even want to imagine what sort of creative death laid in wait for him if they failed in their mission.

"You may think me an awful father," Mr. Ferris spoke quietly. "But there was something wrong with that child. He spellbound people. Spoke of their futures like they were laid plain before him. Or like he had a say in their fates."

"A clairvoyant? Did he practice magic?"

"He had God’s Eye!” Mr. Ferris was exasperated. “I think he made every effort to be embraced by darkness. A Sacrifice has a mark, as you know."

"Yes, an unmistakable cross on the left side of the chest. A welt."

"Looked like he'd been branded like cattle. The vicar showed it me and Liz. But on the day the whole village came by, it was gone." Mr. Ferris shivered. "What sort of dealings with the darkness is that, Professor? Liz was over the moon. She called it a miracle. But then…"

"Yes, Mr. Ferris?"

"The devil came for his due. Liz was never the same again."

"She died?"

"No, she saw _something_. It made her walk out on the fields. Some kids said they saw her walk toward the woods like she was on a mission. Might as well be dead, I don't know.” Mr. Ferris snivelled. "There is no part of my life Lea hasn't ruined. My wife’s gone. I don’t got any friends anymore. My customers barely look at me. Is it so wrong then to wish he'd never been born?"

Isa clicked his tongue again. _Would it be wrong to slap Mr. Ferris across the face before taking my leave?_ Isa asked himself. He gathered a handful of notebooks, the leather-bound book of spells, and the pictures. Most of it fit in his pockets. The spell book he had to tuck between his vest and shirt. Certain etchings made themselves reminded upon shifting his clothes. Isa gripped the chair for support as he breathed through the worst of it. Should he survive a second encounter with the Firebreather, he would treat himself to a hefty slap to the beast’s face for the inconvenience of making him feel too much all at once.

_With so much slapping due, I cannot die._

Isa pulled on his coat for it to have a more natural drop. There was no telling how Mr. Ferris would react to Isa helping himself to Lea’s things.

“Where was your son buried, Mr. Ferris?”

“Buried?”

“Yes, when he passed. After the devil came for his due. Where was he buried? Is there a graveyard nearby? Perhaps he lays in an unnamed grave?”

Mr. Ferris glanced at Isa when the floorboards creaked. He rubbed his forehead and shook his head.

“There is no grave, Professor.”

“His remains weren’t cremated.”

“No ‒ no, not cremated or buried… Lea is alive.” Mr. Ferris shifted his eyes between Xemnas and Isa. “I… he was alive when he left. He hasn’t ‒ can’t have ‒ died. Impossible.” Mr. Ferris forced a smile full of tension as he rubbed his knees and rocked in his chair. “He’s not dead.”

“Right.” Xemnas crossed his legs like he was settling in for a longer interrogation. “Did your son look different when he left? Not quite himself?”

“I don’t… I don’t know what you mean. He left because he set the church on fire. After the sacrificial ritual, the children had to walk into the Fog. We heard screams, figured the Fog had done what it does, and when we came back to release their parents… the church was ablaze. In front of it, stood Lea in the flesh.”

“How do you know it was Lea?”

“He was weeping like Mary Magdalene. Howling. The fire responded to him. It almost took us all out. Lea disappeared in the chaos. We never found a body.”

Isa’s legs ached when his heart beat faster. Lea was _alive_. Demons weren’t made of flesh and blood, surely. It had not seemed like it when Xemnas had explained it to him. Knowing his exhilaration at the news would be plain on his face, Isa turned his back to the interrogation, suddenly intrigued by the herbs left to dry on the wall.

“You are wearing a protection charm, Mr. Ferris, as my companion pointed out. We have seen a similar symbol around the village. Where is it from? Who suggested using it?”

Mr. Ferris furrowed his brow. He leaned back in his chair to keep himself from rocking back and forth, but didn’t manage to keep his legs still. He shook them both like he had ants crawling up the inside of his trousers.

“The vicar had to do what he could to protect us. You lot disappear when times get tough. We were left on our own when the church burnt down, when the Fog nearly had us all done in. _We_ had to look out for _ourselves_.”

“Does this vicar have a name?”

“You should know. The Vatican knows all, don’t it?”

“I would like to hear it from you, Mr. Ferris.”

Mr. Ferris hesitated until he heard Xemnas discreetly rattle the coins in his pocket.

“Father Ansem. Ansem Davis.”

Xemnas rose to his feet, pulled his hand out of his pocket and placed the amount of shillings they had agreed on for Mr. Ferris’ time.

“You have done us a great service. If I were you I would make use of my fortunes to spend time elsewhere for a while, visit family, trace back the roads travelled by the Roundheads.”

“Why?” 

The chair scraped against the wooden floor when Mr. Ferris stood up.

“Your son might come for a visit.”

“But‒”

“The charms might slow him down a little bit, a second, maybe two. You will have more time to study his demonic features before he rips you open and sets you on fire. I am afraid that is all you can do with the extra time. So I am telling you now, Mr. Ferris, as a token of my gratitude, that you must leave.”

Mr. Ferris said nothing in response. Isa didn’t turn around in time to see his face. Whether it was fear, annoyance or indifference that dressed Mr. Ferris’ ragged features, was anybody’s guess. Xemnas herded him out the cottage with discreet urgency, and so, like a good aspirant, Isa followed without question.

“Did you find it?” Xemnas asked in a low voice once they were down the road.

Isa nodded and patted the book through his vest.

“We have to get back to London.”

“What? No! We are not done here.” Isa stopped in his tracks, but Xemnas grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him along.

“I’m aware,” Xemnas assured him. “We cannot do this without help. I’m a researcher, Isa, I have no magic wand and no magic powers. Neither do you.”

“Does that mean that you know what we are contending with?”

“I have a better idea now than this morning. You heard it, didn’t you? Lea didn’t die. He’s alive, which really can only mean one thing.”

“A pact?”

Xemnas nodded.

“A pact with a demon and at least one person eager to turn him. The pact Lea made with you, if nothing else, it was the best thing he could do for himself. Hell cannot lay claim on him if it is someone else’s heart that is keeping him alive.”

Had Xemnas said these things the day after the incident at the _Cirque Macabre_ , Isa would have taken the book of spells to the nearest fire and watched it burn. The mere thought of being nothing but convenient, of holding no other value during his most vulnerable moment, made him nauseous. Fortunately, for the Firebreather, Isa had better control of his emotions. Isa gave the book of spells to Xemnas and refrained from being sick until they got to the train station in Northampton.


	3. Eternal Bond

* * *

**3**

  
  


**Eternal Bond**

  
  


☀☾☀

  
  


The Firebreather wandered through vast fields, forests, dales, and rolling hills. Wherever he went, he left a trail of fire and destruction. All that which he touched ‒ be it thing, beast or human ‒ was taken by the Fog. It followed him; its howls and screams were his only companions on a seemingly endless and inane quest that left little room for respite.

There was nobody on this Earth, dead or alive, with the ability to withstand the horrid cacophony of the Fog without going insane. Any coherent thought, any fleeting phrase or melody, were destroyed by the howls and the screams until words escaped him completely.

The Firebreather growled in response. A guttural sound meant to silence his companion, but it became a warning to anyone nearby who dared to exist in his presence, unscathed by curse and magic, to flee. The winds carried his voice and struck fear in the hearts of any creatures nearby. 

Any creature except the one he had encountered in a darkened alley on the cusp of death. His face was a blur, but his pleasant, empyrean voice lingered. Its memory fought the Fog with tooth and nail. It clung to the shreds of sanity that were left and had done so for so long that the Firebreather mistook it for a kind spectre.

It had grown stronger as of late.

The creature had appeared in the periphery of the Firebreather’s vision on occasion. It shone with a weak light, not strong enough to warrant more than a glance.

The Firebreather tried to ignore it as he staggered ahead. That which he knew had changed. Either his quest had led him astray or he had taken to getting lost on the way. Whatever it was, he was far away from the familiarity of the _Cirque Macabre_ and the treasures within.

The Fog may have taken many things, but his raison d’etre was as clear to him as it had been the day he was turned to Hell’s will on Earth: create a destiny for himself and those he loved the most. He had forged a red string with unspeakable darkness, meddled where only godly hands could go. The price had been ‒ was ‒ steep, and yet, any other time he would have fumbled through land and sea if it meant he could bask in their light for moments at a time.

But that had changed. The light itself had _changed._ It was no longer the certainty of the _Cirque Macabre_ behind the dim light in the distance. Approaching it no longer came with the smell of the large wax candles and buttery popcorn; it no longer came with the whispering crowds, the wailing of the bereft or the screams upon noticing the flames of the Firebreather taking over the field.

No.

It took him elsewhere.

The light led the Firebreather to fields where a star had fallen. The star burned a blue so bright it laid bare truths no one but the Firebreather was privy to. It parted the flesh on his chest and would have broken through his ribcage to claim the heart that was rightfully the Firebreather’s had he not fled into the Fog.

For days, _months_ , it continued. This star chased him through vast fields, forests, dales, and rolling hills. Its beams penetrated the thick Fog and made any other light impossible to see. The Firebreather had grown fearful of the light in the Fog. He was the one to seek. That is how it had been for a decade, how he thought he would live out eternity. But now he was sought after, desperately; there was no escaping its light. It could be Hell that had found a way to drag him under and claim what was left of him. It could be a sorcerer, multiple sorcerers, in search of a way to annihilate all abominations that walked the Earth.

The Firebreather was petrified until, finally, the star’s face was made plain to him. It was a face he had known once upon a time. It fit with the creature whose voice he still heard. Memories of each broken bone, cut and bruise he had healed thundered in his skull ‒ the wet alleyway in a cursed city built like a maze, the vacuum in his chest that nearly swallowed him whole upon the realization that the star saw him fully and didn’t cower away once. The star had desired him. It looked upon this monstrosity and saw kindness. 

His heart leapt in his chest like a hostage at the sight of their savior. Of course, it would. The heart he had made his own belonged to the insistent star that had chased him throughout the entire country. What other reason would a star have to chase a pitiful flame with the audacity of the sun?

There was only one way this could go. _Murder._ It was the first word to come to him and not be drowned out by the Fog. A demon could do much worse. He had done much worse. The blood of hundreds tainted his hands. People who had been torn limb from limb, those who had died by breathing the flames consuming their bodies, those caught under the firebolts, countless lives lost. Not once had he paused to think of the people whose only fault had been to cross his path.

The Firebreather only thought of them at this moment because of what he would do with the star. There was intent this time. He was given pause to think and to plan and to justify before committing the act.

Self-defense. One life for another. All for balance; all to once again find the _Cirque Macabre_ and see Roxas and Xion. _All_ , the Firebreather thought as if the star had, in the pause given, turned into his everything. 

The star would crack and crumble in the hands of the Firebreather. Its light would go out. There would only be one master for this fiercely beating heart. As easy as any other kill, another one to cross his path and suffer the consequences of it, the first kill to have the Firebreather pause for courage.

There it was. The star’s beams of light.

The Firebreather ran from where he hid in the shadows, across the field where the Fog parted for him, and he with it. The closer he came, the smaller he seemed to become. The Firebreather was being torn apart, each split spun in the Fog, and the precious heart thumped away louder and louder.

_“You saw me when no one else could.”_

The Firebreather ran, not towards the star, but into the Fog, not to hide, but to vanquish whatever part of him was spilling out into a world where he could be seen and heard. It took all fire left in him to silence the small part of him that reached his hand out, thinking he could not be burned for trying.

The Fog pieced him together as the star fumbled ahead.

Any and all courage the Firebreather had been able to muster was gone in the Fog once he stood in one piece in the star’s path.

“I owe you nothing. We made a pact. I fulfilled my end of it.”

But the star didn’t stop. With brow furrowed in concentration, with lower lip quivering, breaths shallow as if each attempt to calm down was one of failure, the star continued ahead, chased the flickers of flame in the Fog with a face transformed with awe.

In another life, the Firebreather would have reached for the star. He would have strewn flickers of flame all around to lead the star to him, but its light was disruptive and full of temptation. The path it offered was one of demise.

“Your search for me ends here. I have nothing for you.”

 _Demons,_ the Firebreather reminded himself, _do much worse._ And much worse the Firebreather did. He lit their contract ablaze, citing the magic of broken vows, and the fire took hold.

This was the end to the light that led him astray. It had to be. He would turn around, and on the horizon, the light he had known would make itself visible. The Firebreather would run toward it, yearning for the brief meeting with the treasures of the _Cirque Macabre_.

But then the star spoke. It wasn’t a spell, but a warning, said with tenacity so infuriating the Firebreather saw red. It opened for the fire that burned like iron inside a supernova. The Firebreather pressed his hands against chest and torso as if to keep himself from spilling out onto the ground. Air pressed against the inside of his throat. The core of the Earth burned inside the pit of his stomach.

The scream that escaped him was human.

The Firebreather ran for the star, certain that this sorcery was its fault. Whichever doubts had calmed his hand, were gone. The star had to be ripped apart. And the Firebreather would have done anything to quell the insufferable agony taking him over - anything, anything, anything. But the star looked up at him, and in its defiance, the Firebreather saw the night sky for the first time in a decade. Flickering diamonds against a gradient dark blue, a full moon with the warming light of the star at his mercy. Tears evaporated against his skin. The hiss urged him to attack.

The Firebreather slashed the star across the face.

He could only bear it once.

The star fell silent; it denied the Firebreather its tenacity and its light. The Fog gathered over it, suffocated what was left. When it retreated, the Firebreather was alone with a Fog he could no longer hear.

On the horizon was a light. The Firebreather staggered onto his feet and began his journey anew.

A different fire had caught onto his flesh. A mirror image of the contract he had etched onto the star made itself apparent on him. Blood trickled down his nose and chin from wounds on his forehead. It didn’t answer his commands of healing. It didn’t evaporate like the tears. The wound remained open, adding to the ire that made him burn so ferociously red.

The soles of his feet had been open wounds weeks after his transformation. He had not known the pains of wounds that would not heal since then.

The novelty of burning with a fire that was not his, the stinging and ache that bore itself past his skin all the way into his bones, birthed a palpable fear that clung to him like his own blood. He tried to wipe it off his skin, but the more he touched it the more viscous it became until he was running his claws through thin threads weaving themselves stronger.

Following it would be to deny the light he knew.

The Firebreather wandered, his heart weighed down with want. Here, a wounded beast headed for the light he had known to not acknowledge the fate he had revealed in the blood he and the star had spilled as one.

☀☾☀

The reason for Xemnas’ wish to promptly return to London became apparent soon enough. He made certain to cover the clues to mitigate Isa’s response. They spent two days searching Xemnas’ bookshelves for obscure books about sorcerers and demons. That had been Isa’s first clue.

Isa had seen Xemnas strut up to any of his bookshelves and take out books he needed within seconds of thinking of them. There was a method to his fully stuffed and messy bookshelves. None that Isa could discern, but it shouldn’t have taken them two full days to find anything.

“Mr. Ferris will have warned the vicar by now,” Isa found himself saying more than once.

“Warned, certainly. But the vicar will not abandon Naseby. It is the site of the ritual. It is where it began and it is where it has to end.”

Xemnas’ certainty made the search for the specific books all the more frustrating. And then, after much waiting, came the notice Xemnas had been expecting. Except, judging by the jolt at the messenger's loud voice, Xemnas had perhaps hoped the notice would come in a letter.

“Lady Aqua Mayfair has returned to her residence! She received your note, and will be ready to depart upon your request anytime after noon today, sir. Lady Aqua also sent me this.”

“Excellent,” Xemnas nodded.

The messenger went on his way. Xemnas closed the door and remained by it while he tapped a finger against the doorknob, waiting, without a doubt, for Isa to say something.

“What part does Lady Aqua play in this, pray tell?” Isa asked. He shoved a book back in place hard enough that the shelf squeaked.

“This is not yet another attempt to woo Lady Aqua, if that is your concern,” Xemnas was quick to say.

The tapping Isa had heard while Xemnas stood by the door continued even after Xemnas walked back to his desk. He was holding a small box with a bow in one hand and pulled his other from a small pocket in his vest.

“Really? She tells you she would love to be part of your adventures and suddenly she is part of _my_ lifelong quest to find Lea.”

“Can you please come over here so I don’t have to shout.”

Isa turned on his heels slowly, and walked with stiff legs to Xemnas’ desk. He flopped down onto a chair and motioned Xemnas to continue with whatever sensitive information he was about to impart.

Xemnas sat down next to Isa and inched closer. Theatre or not, Isa was not going to deny that he was intrigued.

“Lady Aqua… she’s, she is a witch,” Xemnas whispered.

“No, she’s not.” Isa held his hand over his mouth to silence a gasp.

“She is.”

“A proper one?”

“Would any other kind be news?”

The invitations had been her doing then. She had found a way to make her way into the elusive _Cirque Macabre_ , and invite others to the spectacle. That certainly put her above simple hexes. The Travellers were a thing of the in-between, a purgatory on Earth that Heaven protected on occasion, but that Hell seeped into constantly ‒ for a witch to penetrate such a world she would either have to have sold her soul or she would pay with it, and interest, if she was ever found out. But more importantly….

“Is it true then? Did she kill her husband? Terra Mayfair, dead at the hands of a witch?”

“Why are you such a gossip? That is not relevant to the case at hand. A case which, until just a few minutes ago, was the most urgent thing in the world for you.”

Isa fell back against his chair, astounded. “Is that a yes then? I cannot believe you’ve known and not told me. You are not only panting for a witch, but one with a body count. The heir of the Mayfair fortune no less.”

“It is much more complicated than that,” Xemnas tried to cut in.

“And you want her to come with us? How do you know she isn’t just after an ingredient? The tendon of a Firebreather and the scrotum of a lovesick intellectual with his head so far up his arse‒”

“Isa… be quiet.” Xemnas took a deep calming breath. “She is all we have. My assistant Ienzo is in Cairo right now and it will take too long for him to return. We need to sort this as quickly as possible, you said so yourself. So I reached out to her for this, first and foremost,” Xemnas shook the box in his hand gently. “And I have asked for her to come with us. If all goes bad, we will need someone well-versed in magic.”

“What is that?”

Xemnas opened the box to reveal three engraved silver bullets. He placed them on the desk to pull out a small golden revolver from the inside pocket of his vest.

“You see three bullets, but the third will dissolve with the second shot. The first one is to debilitate the target, magical barriers, hexes, anything of the sort. The second one is to kill. The third carries the spell for the other two.”

“Always double-tap,” Isa said, reciting a memory.

“Always double-tap,” Xemnas agreed. “You will carry this. Regardless of who your enemy ends up being, the vicar or the Firebreather, you aim and you shoot.

Isa nodded without hesitation. Any other reaction, the first sign of second thoughts, would alert Xemnas. It would be to forfeit the weapon of choice and put the Firebreather’s life in someone else’s hands.

“And what is the other thing?” Isa asked.

“There is no other thing.”

Isa would have believed it had it not been for the exaggerated shrug.

“You put something in your pocket earlier,” Isa insisted.

“Ah, that.” Xemnas cleared his throat. “It’s private.”

“A love letter?”

“Nothing you need to worry yourself with.”

If it was something of a romantic nature, Xemnas was right. Isa did not want to be involved. He wasn’t emotionally stable enough to deal with anybody’s emotions except his own, and that was being generous.

“Do you know what she will wear tomorrow?” Isa asked instead.

“I don’t. Why?”

“I don’t want to be under-dressed.”

Xemnas chuckled and accepted the diversion. “I’ll ask.”

The next day, Xemnas and Isa met Lady Aqua at the train station to leave for Northampton. It was hard to miss her in the crowd. Her scarlet velvet dress with black lace was a bit too much for a two hour train ride, even more so for a village like Naseby. Fortunately, Isa came prepared in an impeccable dark blue suit with a silky purple-patterned vest and a coat with fur on the sleeves and the collar. Lady Aqua would be mistaken for a housemaid in Isa's presence.

Isa had promised himself to not think anything that could be misconstrued as ill thoughts in Lady Aqua’s vicinity should she possess the power to read his mind. Should anything go wrong, Isa wanted the witch on his side, but with the gradual return of emotions, his thoughts were much more difficult to control. Jealousy came much too easily to him.

Xemnas beamed upon greeting Lady Aqua. It made the dark circles under his eyes just about vanish. An embarrassing display, truth be told. Not that Isa thought he was anywhere beyond such displays. If anything, searching and yearning for an entity with no interest in humans surpassed embarrassment.

“Lord Saïx, what a delight!” Lady Aqua exclaimed. She hurried to him, arms open like she had the intention to hug him, or the corset was digging into her armpits and she had no choice but to hold her arms out like a starfish. It was hard to say, but the latter was more likely than the first.

Lady Aqua, who seemed to hold him in equal amounts of esteem as he had for her, ran her arms around his waist and brought him in for a hug that was much too tight to be appropriate in public. Isa held back a cough when she squeezed the air out of him and swayed slightly before releasing her iron grip.

“I have something to tell you both,” Lady Aqua said. “Let’s talk inside.”

“I think she broke my spine,” Isa told Xemnas while they waited for Lady Aqua to get into their compartment first.

“Nonsense. Look at you! Straight as an arrow.” Xemnas patted him on his shoulder. “Don’t mess too much with your clothes. The ribbon on the vest will come undone at the back and you know I can’t tie a straight ribbon for Queen nor country.”

Isa rested his hands on his hips to refrain from pressing them against his lower back.

The compartment was spacious and comfortable. A far cry from the coach, and much needed after Lady Aqua’s idea of a greeting.

She tucked a stray curl behind her ear with a gloved hand. Her eyes sparkled with excitement, and she smiled brightly as if on a mission to put Xemnas in an early grave.

“We are all ears,” Isa said, and held back a genuine yawn.

Good sleep had eluded him lately. It had done nothing for his mood or his agreeableness.

“First, I must commend you gentlemen for picking quite the adversary. I would have gone with something less life threatening for a start, but we all have our preferences.”

Lady Aqua dug for a notebook with a patterned hardcover in her small bag. It had a small, looped ribbon for a gorgeous pen. Isa would have asked her of whom she had commissioned it, but Xemnas put a hand on his arm.

“The area has been plagued with Fog for centuries," Lady Aqua said. "I am certain that most groups of Travellers in Britain have at least one person from Northamptonshire. Of the handful of Firebreather sightings in the Midlands, at least three were in either Naseby or Northampton. And it all started after the Black Death in 1349.”

“Do you think there is a connection there?” Xemnas asked.

“It would be easy to hide human sacrifices with so many people dying at once, wouldn’t it? And at the center of this man-made and hellish vortex is Ansem Davis.” Aqua nodded. “I don’t know what sort of rumors have made it into your books, Professor, but a prevalent one in my circles is that vicars that lead sacrificial rituals for the Fog are chosen by the Divine. Most see it as an honor. You would have to in order to handle the mental and physical strain. A vicar is chosen at eighteen on average. The oldest one I have heard of was twenty-five. They rarely make it past three years after they receive their mark.”

“Ansem Davis is much older than that,” Isa said.

“You have met him then?” Lady Aqua squinted at Isa.

“No, but he was mentioned in texts from over ten years ago.”

Lady Aqua paused.

“Xemnas, I thought I told you I would need everything you knew.”

“These writings are private,” Isa said before Xemnas could explain himself. “They are just mundane writings of the everyday life of a baker.”

“The Firebreather?” Lady Aqua asked with the same eagerness Isa had shown upon inquiring about her dead husband.

“What else did you find, Lady Aqua?” Xemnas interrupted.

With a somewhat dampened mood, Lady Aqua decided to continue.

“There was a great fire in Northampton in 1675. Nearly burned the whole town to the ground. Except the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.”

“A Firebreather was sighted,” Xemnas added, a certain excitement to his voice.

“Yes. But that’s not all, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a replica of the one in Jerusalem. The nave is round. On the ceiling there is a window adorned like a sun from which the Divine can travel, or so the legend goes.”

“And?” Isa tapped his fingers against his knee.

“The church in Naseby is built the same way. A round nave with a chancel pointing to Jerusalem. Like a keyhole ‒ like so.” Lady Aqua drew with broad strokes and held her notebook up to show them both. “How much have you taught Lord Saïx about magic, Professor?”

“A lot, I would say.”

“Well, then, it would come as no surprise that anything built for communication with Heaven can also be used to communicate with Hell with only small changes. And this is where Ansem Davis comes in. Formerly chosen by the Divine, only to have turned his back on it sometime around the Black Death. As I said, it is easy to sacrifice others when all who die are tossed into a burning pit. From then on, we have sightings of Firebreathers, regular sacrifices to the Fog, and a vicar who lives past his three years. Someone who has escaped the noose for this long will put up a fight like no other. Who knows who his patron is?”

Isa yawned widely, unable to withhold it any longer. It was enough to inspire Xemnas to do the same and Lady Aqua could only stare, mouth agape, at the insult.

“Have you no manners at all?”

“Apologies, Lady Aqua,” Xemnas began.

“This has nothing to do with you,” Isa added. It was all he could do to not try to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

“Lord Saïx has been plagued by nightmares since the incident in Naseby.”

“What sort of nightmares?”

“They aren’t nightmares. It’s a presence. It lurks in the shadows, and whenever I begin to fall asleep, it approaches me, watches ‒ it moves too fast for me to see it. I’ve asked Xemnas to do an exorcism, but he has done nothing.”

“I watch over you when you sleep, do I not? In case the Firebreather decides to finish what he started. Besides, an exorcism would accomplish nothing. You are not possessed or haunted.”

“Your hand, please, Lord Saïx.”

Lady Aqua held her hand out. She inched closer to the edge of her seat while she pulled her silky glove off and placed it beside her.

“You will make that one jealous.” Isa nodded Xemnas’ way.

“I assure you both, I harbor no such feelings where Lord Psyche is concerned.”

“Hush both of you. You are acting like babes.”

Lady Aqua grabbed Isa’s hand and pulled off his leather glove in one swift move. It was, undoubtedly, a brusque move for a woman so preoccupied with proper etiquette, but then again, this was a witch who had, more than likely, murdered her husband for his inheritance.

It was the one thing Isa did not want to think about when in such close proximity to Lady Aqua, but he was left with no options when she pressed her thumb into the palm of his hand as if to see how far she could go before the bones would crack.

Lady Aqua only managed to keep her grip for a handful of seconds. She yelped suddenly and flew back into the soft seat like she was scrambling away from a horrible sight.

Xemnas hurried to sit beside her and assure her there was no danger with them. It didn’t keep him from scouring for whatever it was that had frightened her. Lady Aqua, a witch instead of a warlock meddling with the affairs of Firebreathers and Travellers, would anger any demon with stakes in this situation.

Lady Aqua breathed heavily as she wafted her hand and glanced at the palm of it.

“I did not know Firebreathers were capable of ignoring their calling. You are certain that you haven’t tried the spell in the book you found?”

“I can’t read spells. They all look like squiggly lines to me.”

“He made a pact with a Firebreather. You know as much,” Xemnas reminded her.

“What I saw goes beyond a pact. It has nothing to do with what is in the contract. They are bound outside of it. The Firebreather might be following you or perhaps he sent a Shadow after you. This is why I need to know if you, any of you, tried the spell in the book.”

“No, for god’s sake.” Isa snapped. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“It’s a binding spell then? The one in the book.”

“A powerful one. If this is what Ansem Davis used for his ends, it would explain how he manages to extend his life.”

“A soul for Hell and a heart for an additional lifetime on Earth,” Xemnas agreed.

 _Or to bind fates together_ , Isa thought. It was something he ought to tell Xemnas and Lady Aqua. Anything they did to mend the mess they were in would impact the two Travellers mentioned in Lea’s diary. Isa had no doubt. What worried him was that the well-being of the two Travellers would take priority if he were to mention them.

The Firebreather had to make it unscathed. It was him that Isa wanted to save. If it came at the cost of the two Travellers, surely that would be a mercy to all. A dignified end to cursed lives.

The forest and fields surrounding the railway disappeared into the Fog rolling down the hills toward Northampton. Xemnas had herded the Travellers closer to Naseby with the hopes that it would bring the Firebreather closer to home.

Isa thought to point out that it would be near impossible to travel to Naseby if the Fog took the lead, but decided against it to not risk Xemnas’ smug expression when he wordlessly presented the solution to a problem that had only just recently dawned on Isa.

It was the right decision to make.

Outside Northampton station stood the black cab and the Arabian horses with a driver dressed like a Venician doctor during the Black Death. A confrontation with a powerful warlock did not seem to be dramatic enough for Xemnas. Isa hoped the sight would raise his spirits, but his heart was in his throat. What he had sought and yearned for was within his grasp. All he had to do was to succeed in this final stretch.

He placed his hand on his side to feel the weight of the loaded gun. _By God’s grace, may Ansem Davis be an easy target._

The faint spectres in the light Fog screeched after them as they hurried into the cab. Lady Aqua had to pull the skirt of her dress away from the spectres. Xemnas slammed the door shut as soon as Lady Aqua tumbled back.

“Feisty devils,” he mumbled.

“I don’t know how we will get to the church if the Fog is any thicker in Naseby,” Lady Aqua breathed. “Are the streets wide enough for this cab?”

“I think we can get to the marketplace. We will have to walk the rest of the way.”

“Run more like. There are a few spells that can keep the Fog away long enough for us to make it to church, but that will put us in a precarious situation. If Ansem Davis sends lackeys to welcome us, we will be vulnerable to attacks.”

Isa decided to chime in.

“Have you not told her you’ve wrestled alligators in the Nile, Xemnas? A few malnourished merchants won’t be enough to slow his pace down the street.” Isa smirked when Lady Aqua whipped her head to watch Xemnas in awe.

“It ‒ no, that isn’t ‒ first of all, there are no alligators in the Nile," Xemnas began, "they are crocodiles. Secondly, it was only a smack to its face to give us enough time to run back to the closest farmers with an axe.”

“I wasn’t there by the way,” Isa clarified. “Ienzo, his assistant, told the tale. He isn’t one for exaggeration, and he swore up and down that the crocodile was twice his size in length, and one of him in width.”

“They get fairly large, yes. It must have thought Ienzo would be an easy prey. He is a man of small stature.”

The three of them flinched at the Fog’s banging on the cab hard enough to make the windows crack ever so slightly.

“Is the driver alright?” Lady Aqua asked quietly.

“He is well-versed in the art of travelling through the Fog,” Xemnas assured her, but the gulp undermined his certainty.

Lady Aqua moved from Xemnas’ side to sit down next to Isa. She said in a low voice.

“You have the gun, yes?”

Isa nodded.

“Good. No pressure, but all our skins’ hang on you shooting that overachieving vicar right here.” Lady Aqua held two fingers between her eyebrows. “If the Firebreather comes to his aid, position yourself.”

“Do you think he’ll be there?”

“There will be a light emanating from a slab of marble near the middle of the nave. It’s a replica of the Savior’s tomb. It will shoot through the sun-shaped window, and when it begins to burn with visible flames, you will know that the Firebreather is near.”

Another onslaught of desperate banging shook the cab. Isa, Xemnas and Lady Aqua tensed to not make a sound. They heard the driver yell at the horses. The three of them grabbed onto looped leather straps on the walls to not be tossed around in the cab.

Nothing else was said. The Fog seemed to be listening for them. Spectres pressed up the cracked windows with faces deformed in the wind, constantly transforming, shrieking for a reply. Should they manage to break through, the Fog would rip them all to shreds and consume their souls. There was no saving from it once it came to pass.

Isa closed his eyes tightly.

The presence was there, just beyond his grasp. Isa expected to feel its breath against the shell of his ear, and he shuddered. The cab shook violently. It didn’t cease. The more Isa tried to find the presence, the more he upset the Fog.

Isa bounced against his side of the cab and felt a sharp pain in his hip. He gasped and looked around to make sure that neither Xemnas nor Lady Aqua had been sucked out of the cab. Both were there. Lady Aqua had her heel against Isa’s hip.

“You need to stop,” she said. “Don't call for it. You’re making it worse.”

Another knock on the door of the cab made them all freeze. It didn’t come with a shriek or shaking. It was only followed up by a second knock.

“Your Lordship, we have arrived at Naseby. This is as far as I can go.”

“Yes, of course. How is the Fog?” Xemnas cleared his throat. He looked to Isa and Lady Aqua to confirm the swift change.

Isa inched closer to the door.

“The Fog is closing in, sir. I can be on the ready for you, but I have to continue down the road a bit before I can turn around. The Fog might be well upon us by then, so any errands you have here should be dealt with quickly.”

“This is silly,” Lady Aqua muttered.

Both Xemnas and Isa moved to stop Lady Aqua, but she was much too agile. The door flew open. The driver jumped back, hand inside his coat as if to unsheathe a sword. The loud exhale of relief from him at seeing his passengers was one small comfort.

“Tell us, Mr. Cullen,” Xemnas began as he got out of the cab. “Was this as rough a ride as I experienced it?”

“The Fog was on our tail for a short while, sir. But nothing we haven’t been through before.”

“No cracked windows?” Xemnas helped Lady Aqua and Isa out of the cab.

“Cracked windows, sir? This was built to your specifications. A masterpiece, if I may. We would have to travel through thick Fog for days to have it suffer any damage.”

“Right.”

It was just as the driver had said. The Fog was closing in from all sides. Time was short. All was grey and wet in the drizzling rain. The air seemed thick, like catching a downdraft from the latrines dug outside the tunnel entrance and the back of a butcher’s shop all at once.

“I suspect you regret your choice of dress for our field trip, Lady Aqua?” Isa said.

He held his hand over nose and mouth to fend off the worst of the offensive smell, but it did next to nothing.

“Do you ever regret your wear of the day, Lord Saïx?”

Lady Aqua walked down the muddy road in short heels without any issue.

“Never.”

“That goes double for me.”

“While I am enjoying your banter, I think we should focus,” Xemnas said. “It smells like they have left their dead on the street for days. That is definitely new.”

“You didn’t see any bodies hang off any walls last you were here, did you?” Lady Aqua stopped and pointed to the house where Isa had first noticed the protection charm.

Isa squinted to make out the flayed figure Lady Aqua had discovered from the red, wet bricks of the building. Once he made out what it was he was seeing, he flinched. He closed his eyes tightly and turned his back to it.

There were no deep breaths to be had here. It took sheer willpower to not lose his breakfast. After a decade of desperately searching for emotion, he found himself wishing for the indifference that would perhaps not have saved him from nausea, but that would at least numb the sense of injustice.

“Is the Firebreather here?” Xemnas asked Lady Aqua.

“It looks too deliberate to be a Firebreather, no? Remember the mayhem after our visit to the _Cirque Macabre_. People laid strewn everywhere, either scattered in a trail or in piles.”

“That is a welcome sign then.” Xemnas’ voice trailed off as if nausea caught up with him.

Isa put a hand over Xemnas’ eyes and pushed him softly.

“Stop looking at it. It’s not going to get any better.”

There was no sense of pride in being right about it not getting any better. The further into the village they got, the more apparent the massacre became. Isa counted about a hundred corpses. The side-glances of pity from Xemnas and Lady Aqua were enough for Isa to understand what they were thinking. This was the Firebreather’s doing. Ansem Davis had summoned it and it was doing Ansem’s bidding.

Isa stopped in the middle of the town square.

“It’s not him.”

Xemnas sighed and grabbed him by the arm to keep moving ahead, but Isa pulled his arm back. Lady Aqua rested her hands on her hips. She chewed on her bottom lip as if contemplating whether to speak or remain silent.

“I need you to know that it’s not him,” Isa repeated.

“No one has passed any judgement,” Xemnas assured him.

“You have. I know what this looks like, but I know that this is not his doing.”

“We know who the culprit is, Isa,” Xemnas tried again. “Ansem Davis. And we need to get to the church to deal with him before the Fog gets in our way.”

“The Firebreather smells like a forest fire. There is nothing like it here,” Isa insisted.

“I think the smell of the dead ones would mask any other smell,” Lady Aqua said. “The Professor is right. Whatever we think, it doesn’t matter now. We deal with Ansem Davis first.”

“Exactly. Ansem Davis, not Lea.”

The silence that followed stretched for just a second too long like they were both waiting for the other to relinquish an elaborate emergency plan.

“Understood,” Lady Aqua nodded.

Xemnas lowered his head as he sighed. “Of course.”

“Is there anything on me that is a danger to Lea?”

Xemnas glanced back at Lady Aqua. She forced a quick smile and walked back to Isa.

“Raise your arms,” she said.

Lady Aqua ran her arms around Isa’s waist like she had done at the train station. On the small ribbon of his vest, on his lower back, Lady Aqua had pinched a small hex bag that she held up for Isa to see before she emptied it into the wind.

“All done.”

“It was only in the case of an emergency,” Xemnas began solemnly. “A last resort if it came down to you or the Firebreather.”

“I know.” Isa placed his hand on Xemnas’ arm. “I know it was.”

Xemnas was rarely one for public displays of affection, particularly with Lady Aqua watching. It had been a great source of entertainment in time’s past for Isa, which is why he thought that a touch of his arm was as decent as he could make a probable goodbye. But Xemnas was of another mind. He pulled Isa in for a hug. A gentleman’s hug with the patting of the back, not the lingering kind where Isa could feel Xemnas’ breath tickle the curve of his neck.

Xemnas was quick to turn away and keep walking as soon as he broke the embrace. If there had been anything to plant seeds of doubt in the last stretch of the journey, it would have been saying goodbye to Xemnas. But Isa felt all the more resolute. If his demise was part of what was to come, so be it. It was not an aim, just a calculated risk. He was much more in favor of returning to London in one piece along with Lea Ferris, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“I wonder,” Lady Aqua said.

She dug into the lower back of her dress and unsheathed a wicked dagger with double edges and a bejeweled hilt.

“What’s that?” Xemnas’ voice was heavy.

Isa lifted his feet. Something sticky coated the tiled ground. It almost made him slip out of his shoes each time he took a step.

“If the Firebreather was created after the sacrifice of the two Travellers. What was it? Xion and Roxanne?”

“Roxas.”

“Yes, them.” Lady Aqua pointed to her far left where there was some cautious movement by a dimly lit shop window. “What happens to them if the Firebreather is turned back to a human? Their sacrifice was instrumental to the transformation of the Firebreather, was it not? Unless they were part of a deal, I don’t see why Ansem Davis would bother with that step. His sacrifices are usually no less than groups of thirteen.”

 _Questions that should have been asked at an earlier stage_ , Isa thought begrudgingly. Ultimately, whatever happened to the Travellers didn’t matter. There was no telling where they were, how they would react, or if any interaction could be had with them. None had reacted to the mourning people present at their performance. There was no reason to think they would comprehend any actions made to save them.

Before Isa could lay bare his heartlessness, even in the midst of a rebirth of emotions, Xemnas spoke for him and saved Lady Aqua from another ugly sight.

“I have not found any texts or clues about the reversion process for Travellers. Not even a mention of it. I would not know where to begin, I’m sad to admit.”

“Regrettable, is it not, Lord Saïx?” Lady Aqua didn’t turn around, but the bitterness came through even without a facial expression.

“Most regrettable,” Isa agreed with ease, more concerned about the increasingly viscous goo that made it difficult to walk. Neither Xemnas nor Lady Aqua seemed to have an issue with it.

Rapid footsteps hitting puddles of water and blood echoed in the darkness. They looked around frantically for any clue.

An ear-splitting shriek urged Isa to hurry toward Xemnas. He gripped on tighter than he intended. Xemnas yelped like he thought it was one of the creatures that had gotten their teeth into him. The shriek slowed down time after that.

Xemnas turned his head for almost half a minute before Isa could see his face. Another blood-curdling shriek. It came from three different directions. They were surrounded. Lady Aqua was the only one among them that was armed.

Isa thought to push Xemnas forward and get him to run, but it took too long to move. Xemnas’ eyes rolled back. The shriek grew louder. The shadows that had moved against the buildings surrounding the square began to move in masses.

Xemnas arm became marble under Isa’s touch. The white of his eyes was all there was left as he faded and became a cold column.

Trembling, Isa tried to get him back. Every touch of his hand came with a soft echo. The shadows had become small tealights in an orange lit church. He had been transported. This wasn’t the blood-soaked town square. This was the chancel of the All Saints’ Church. God, he hoped it was. The alternative was the one Lady Aqua said was in Northampton.

Isa steeled himself. Xemnas and Lady Aqua had to be nearby.

Different voices came from the nave ahead.

Isa was careful with every step he took. He moved from column to column, remained close to the shadows, and nary took a breath to not reveal himself.

The golden revolver with the magic-infused bullets was like a comfort blanket in his hand. It was still in his pocket. He didn’t want to take it out before it was time to shoot. It was best to let the vicar think he had stumbled in here on accident, unarmed and unaware of the forces he was trifling with.

The voices grew clearer. There were at least four people exchanging words. Isa recognized one: Mr. Ferris, the baker. Calling him a father after the story he had told was much too generous a statement.

“Dearly beloved, I assure you that the horrors of the outside do not have the powers to step onto this holy land of our Almighty Lord,” said a dark voice. Vicar Ansem Davis, no doubt.

Isa inched as close as he dared to get a glance of what he was contending with. Had the vicar stood alone by the marble slab in the middle of the nave, Isa would have had no qualms about sneaking up on him and shooting him twice in the back. All is fair in war and love, particularly when the enemy has a penchant for dark magic.

“I am grateful that Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw as well as Mr. and Mrs. Hathersage are with us today to allow us to right past wrongs. It was only recently that we discovered the lengths Lea Ferris had gone to curse your innocent children. Some depravity knows no bounds.”

Isa closed his eyes and struggled to not swear. He had already made his mind up about the fate of the Travellers that were very much no longer children. It was just an unpleasant surprise that he would have to face that decision once he entered the nave to put an end to any and all hope.

“The solution I offer might strike you as extreme. And I agree _wholeheartedly_ , it is extreme, but such is the situation we find ourselves in. You saw the creatures out there. You saw what they were capable of, did you not?”

Isa shivered. At first it sounded like they were holding back laughter, but once the scattered response came it was clear that most of them were weeping.

Ansem Davis paced.

“Tonight we must commit a cardinal sin for a good greater than us. It begins and it ends tonight, but make no mistake, it will sully the goodness and loyalty you have shown our Lord up until this very moment.”

“Please, Father,” begged Mr. Ferris. “Just say what we must do, and we will do it. I have waited a lifetime to make amends for my son, to finally be able to show my face to my brethren and walk with dignity once more.”

“Very well,” said Ansem Davis solemnly like he hadn’t been fishing for such a response. “We must summon the demon brought to us by Lea Ferris.”

The choked gasp that followed the mentioning of a demon and the rushed prayers after were almost comical. The trust the congregation had for vicar Ansem Davis was blind. Fortunately, the current congregation seemed to be no more than ten people. Most of them sat in the front pews, entranced by every word Ansem Davis said. All Isa had to do was find the right position to aim and shoot. There would be nothing the congregation could do to stop a bullet, let alone two.

“We call upon Dac Uzai’do, Prince of the 13th Legion, an eater of Hearts, generous in his offerings. Please, Lord Dac Uzai’do, hear our plea.”

A low rumble seemed to come from underneath the church. A light emerged behind Ansem from the marble slab on the altar, reaching for the round window above.

Isa dared to lean forward ever so slightly for another glance. Ansem Davis shifted his weight from side to side. He held his hands up, swayed in an odd rhythm and hummed the name over and over again.

Isa pulled out the gun. It was now or never. As the congregation swayed together with the vicar, Isa stepped into the nave and walked quietly to place himself across from Ansem Davis.

A low and wicked laugh escaped the vicar. His teeth were unnaturally white, even with the graying blonde beard in contrast.

“Oh, Dark One, behold. The marked vessel steps out of the shadows at long last. Our word is gold, oh, Dark One. Freedom for the innocent souls caught by the Fog, give me a Heart of Courage. For your favor, you will walk the Earth once more.”

Isa needed only to take one step closer to unload the bullets into the vicar’s head. There was no need to understand what he said when he would soon be dead. One step.

The floor lit up around Isa. It was a mist illuminated red, tainted by the markings in blood that had been invisible up until now. Circles and squiggles. Isa couldn’t read any of it. All he knew was that his finger froze on the trigger. Try as he might, his hands were no longer his to control.

Mr. Ferris and the parents of the Travellers turned all together to behold the intruder.

“I can only imagine how much time and coin you spent to find the wicked Firebreather," said Ansem Davis. "We all heard how much you want to save it. A beast with blood-soiled hands, and you want to grant it absolution whilst leaving two innocents to their fate.”

Ansem Davis approached Isa. He put a lot of faith in the spell that bound Isa, but it didn’t keep Isa from fighting it. With control of his forefinger he could end it all.

“Had you not been the vessel, you realize that you would have died by a hundred stab wounds? Courtesy of the Congregation.”

The beam of light shone brighter behind Ansem Davis. It came down from the round window above, decorated, as Lady Aqua had said, like a sun.

The rumble Isa had heard before grew louder.

The walls seemed to be closing in more and more with every failed attempt to move his finger. The surroundings shifted with every other blink. The church, the vicar and the congregation became the rocks that had tumbled down all in one go, one wicked day in the tunnels. They weren’t meant to work on this wall. It was too thin as it was. But the foreman had seen signs of a gold vein. So they hacked away.

Isa’s chest tightened.

If he opened his eyes, Tom’s remains would be there. The blunt end of a large rock over a splatter of red. Isa had been lucky. The rocks had only caught his leg. He was fine. What made it suffocating was the smell and the splatter on him. He didn’t even dare to scream for help when he heard the others call his name. The taste of iron was already seeping past his lips.

“Lord Saïx.” Ansem’s voice drowned out the shouts of memories. “Peculiar how someone with such wealth has failed to cast roots. How I have searched for anyone who knew you before you made a pact with the devil. But who would dare?” Ansem turned to his followers for a revelation. “See, this man was a nobody until a devil gave him the world. While you toiled and suffered to make a living, this man made it possible for the Firebreather to exist, to spend a lifetime torturing your innocent children for nobody’s gain but his own. I will prove this to you.”

This couldn’t get worse. A line had to be drawn somewhere. This wasn’t fair. Isa thought to breathe properly and regain a modicum of control, but fear had settled into every muscle in his body. The spell kept him anchored to the floor. His fingers were immovable. They were cemented to the revolver.

Ansem reached his hand over the boundary of the spell. The red mist fizzled and parted only around his hand. _He cannot hurt me, he cannot hurt me,_ Isa repeated with the hopes it would convince himself.

It did not help at all.

A swift flicker of Ansem’s wrist began the spread of a familiar fire across Isa’s skin. The small writings of the contract appeared around the remnants of scars and welts on his hands first. Isa was faintly aware of the gasps from Ansem’s followers. The barrage of colorful insults was dulled in the increasing heat.

This was the end. At the hands of an old warlock using Isa’s only vow. He was certain his knees had given out. He would fall like a ragdoll, and he would not get up. That was the only certain thing. But the fall never came.

Ansem’s mutterings, the furious shrieks, they all seemed to come from below. A flash of light shattered the red mist. It cracked the floor underneath Isa’s feet. For a second, all was quiet. Isa forced his eyes open in time to see the familiar blueish light that had decorated the invitations from Lady Aqua. She wasn’t the only one sneaking gifts in during hugs.

The protective spell had blasted Ansem down the aisle. He crawled backward on his elbows, feet slipping against the floor in his disorientation. The marble slab was the only thing of importance that way.

Isa raised the revolver, ready to take aim and shoot. One second longer and it would’ve ended, but the followers came to the rescue. Isa barely made out Mr. Ferris’ features when he pulled the revolver out of his hands.

The closed fist to his face rattled his brain. Isa stumbled back. The taste of blood froze him in his tracks. It gave the followers the time they needed. A woman shouted “Shoot!” Mr. Ferris did not hesitate.

The shot echoed inside the nave. The bullet ripped its way through Isa’s abdomen; he could only tell because the lingering burn from the contract burned differently from the bullet. There was order to the contract. The bullet was sheer chaos.

No protective spell came to his aid then. None that helped to ease the pain or stop the blood loss. The ground shook. Ansem’s demon must have dug itself through Hell to lay claim on what he had been promised. Mr. Ferris was certainly in tune with it. He didn’t seem to have any intention to shoot again. He dropped the revolver to the floor. The woman next to him seemed eager to pick it up, but as it is in many areas of life, a man came to hold her back.

It saved her life.

Tile, brick and earth flew as the demon pushed out of the ground with force so fierce chandeliers fell in the chancel. The tip of the demon’s horns caught Isa’s cheek. It left a small cut. The golden chains, thick and thin, the impressive gems that sparkled in the candle light maintained Isa’s fading attention. The jewels were offerings. It was as if this same demon had unearthed itself through a place of worship once upon another time.

The screams of the followers were drowned out in the beast’s deafening roar. Isa followed the length of its arms from the hand beside Isa’s face. The waft of heat from the firebolt made Isa shiver. This was as beastly as the Firebreather had ever been. A soft light flickered across his skin with every other heartbeat. Each scale on his arms and legs seemed to harbor the fire of a thousand suns.

“You’ve abandoned your calling!” Ansem laughed wickedly. “No part of you can remain. Not after more than a decade. I don’t know what sorcery is at work, but I will find out in due time. I’m glad you could make it. I have always wondered what it looks like when a soul disintegrates.”

 _Run. Lea. Please, run. Find Xemnas. He will help you._ Isa clawed frantically at the Firebreather, whatever he could reach. The Firebreather didn’t move. Isa could only hear him growl.

Ansem laughed again.

The pooled blood under Isa moved droplet by droplet. Each droplet was squashed and spread over the cracked floor into a circle with writings. Isa tried to wipe it off, but Ansem was quick to redo it. There was no shortage of blood for him to use.

Isa tried to shake the Firebreather out of the trance he was stuck in. The flames shifted color from red and orange to shades of blue when Ansem picked him off the floor. The grumbling from below began anew. The nave was filling up with smoke. The pews and chandeliers stood ablaze. Isa held onto the Firebreather’s arm. If he could remain on the ground then surely the ritual could not proceed.

The spell made light work of Isa. He could only hold on for so long before he lost all strength in his limbs. His vision blackened for a second. This wasn’t the time to give up.

The Firebreather roared in pain. He hadn’t moved, but when the spell began to dig into his chest, the Firebreather began to thrash around. The flames burst around them. All that caught fire crackled loudly.

“You think I would surrender to a lowly demon like you?!” Ansem demanded. “I am Divine! I am the Light! I can do no wrong. My sole purpose is to cleanse the world from the likes of you. Those who have been blessed with life but doomed to squander all possibilities.”

The light of the spell cast a reflection on gold under bits of pew. The revolver. Isa tried for a deep breath, but the smoke made it near impossible. No matter. Third time's the charm. He just had to get to it before the fire did.

Isa tightened the hold over the wound on the left side of his abdomen and crawled over debris. The revolver glistened in the fire. Isa wasted no time. He propped himself up on the upside-down pew, hoping the flames wouldn’t muddy his aim. 

Father Ansem Davis was disheveled. A streak of blood ran down his hairline from where he had injured himself on the first blast. A circular light floated between the two. It jerked back and forth like the marker of a rope in a Tug-of-War. The Divine was putting blood, sweat and tears into tearing one Firebreather apart.

Isa let go of his wound to steady his aim. The third bullet would dissolve, Xemnas had said, but even so, Isa shot twice.

Ansem’s head flung back. He collapsed into a heap on the floor with a sickening thud that echoed in the nave and colored the marble slab red. Isa counted on at least a second of respite, but the orb of light was slung against a pillar and seemed to shatter to thousand pieces of shrapnel.

The roars of the Firebreather became screams in that instant. The room flashed white. The shrapnel flew; Isa was caught in it. It pierced through his chest with a force that robbed him of breath.

Isa stumbled forward. He fell onto his hands and knees. Debris dug into his skin as he crawled blind and deaf to the Firebreather. Sight and hearing came back slowly with the withdrawing of the white light.

The screams had turned to wails. The fire responded to it. The cracks in the hoarse voice made the flames grow higher until they licked the high ceiling of the nave. Isa patted his way to the now naked man, crying his heart out.

“It’s alright,” Isa said softly. He struggled to get his coat off. The wound on his side ached hollow, burned, and throbbed in succession. Moving was not a good idea. Isa turned white with nausea at a particularly brusque move. He covered Lea with his coat and laid down beside him, one hand pressing over his wound, the other tentatively grasping Lea’s hand.

A window shattered on the other side of the marble slab.

“Lea.” Isa watched Lea’s silhouette. There were smudges of ash on his face, streaked with tears. His lips and chin trembled with sobs he tried to hold back.

“Lea,” Isa repeated. “I searched everywhere for you.”

Lea tightened his hold of Isa’s hand. He snivelled and turned tentatively to face Isa. Even with bloodshot eyes, his crazed red mane, and nicks on his skin from where the scales had been, Lea was breathtaking.

“I know you.” Lea’s voice cracked. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you.”

Lea inched in closer. He cupped Isa’s face with a rough hand as if trying to gauge his temperature and compare the color of Isa’s skin to the color of his hand. Lea furrowed his brow. The flames spreading around them cast a soft light. It almost made Lea blurry. Isa blinked to regain focus. Just a few more minutes, it couldn’t be much to ask.

Lea said something, many things, as his touches became frantic. He was crying again. The sobs were faint at first, but once Isa’s eyelids grew heavier, and the remaining windows in the nave shattered one by one, the sobs disappeared altogether, and the last thing Isa heard was a deafening roar as he was enveloped in fire.

  
  


☀☾☀

A YEAR LATER…

☀☾☀

  
  


The fire and consequent high death toll in Naseby in the early autumn of 1882 became a thing of legend. It spurred on fears of the Fog, the Travellers, and Firebreathers. The most prominent theory was magical warfare ‒ the Travellers had grown tired of their mission and instead of protecting the masses from their curse, they were going to wield it in favor of Hell.

Fearing retaliation and the consequences of such, politicians and scholars came together in an awareness campaign where they talked about the factual occurrences of the fire, none of which placed the Travellers or Firebreathers as the culprits. The last thing everyone needed were vigilantes willing to kill Travellers and make the Fog stronger.

The campaign did nothing to quell the various rumours out in the nearby villages, towns and cities. Some claimed that survivors had seen a Firebreather dash out of the All Saints’ Church, carrying a fair maiden in his strong arms, and that it had called for the powers of Hell as if praying. Others claimed that before the maiden met her inevitable end, she had fought hordes of demons, her soul so pure and fair that it blinded the Demon Army. The real story might have been something else, something more gruesome, before it was turned to romance novels that ruffled sensibilities everywhere. No one could say for certain anymore.

The worst of it was that Xemnas had gotten his way. The world knew of Isa as they knew of Psyche and Catherine Earnshaw, a tragic maiden that could only get what she wanted once after death.

The truth differed greatly from the rumors, however. The not-maiden had survived. He was saved by a baker’s son, a scholar, and a witch. It was the witch, not the maiden, that had taken out hordes of demons, and surely no witch with her first husband’s blood on her hands could be accused of being too pure and fair. The healing in the aftermath of such adventures had taken time, and in the midst of it, the not-maiden and the baker’s son did their best to reconcile with their hearts, both so full of emotions and want for life that it had been hard to breathe.

Life had begun anew. Or mostly anew. Some things hadn’t changed, like the awful stories written about the incident at Naseby along with the endless gossip amongst acquaintances.

Isa scrunched his nose at the review of _The Cure for Demons Lies in Naseby_ in the Evening Standard and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. According to the reviewer, no book could compare to this literary marvel about the events that transpired. It was thoroughly researched, the only truth the curious would need in a long list of such books. 

_The young maiden sacrifices her innocent life to cure the demon of its wicked nature, which poses the question: must Heaven fall for Hell to vanquish?_

“Fuck’s sake,” Isa muttered and closed the paper. He wasn’t much for swearing, but certain garbage in the newspapers inspired such exclamations.

He would have to visit Xemnas later to ask him if he was working overtime to write trite novels and review them at the same time. Isa refused to believe that this would be of interest to anybody else. Perhaps Lady Aqua, if only to see him struggle to keep his feelings under control. It had been such an easy task before. He was lucky if all he managed to convey was annoyance and not be read like an open book nowadays.

While it was a hassle to no longer be able to wear a mask to hide his emotions at social events, it was something he could learn again if need be. The reason for his undoing was worth the sensation of living on the Montagnes Russes de Belleville. Lea Ferris proved to be a force of nature. Every day was one to embrace and live fully. His temper rivaled Isa’s, as did his stubbornness. At times it was like looking into the mirror to see the spectacle one made of oneself for things that ultimately didn’t matter.

There was really only one thing that was a bone of contention between them. The Travellers were still out there. Lea’s former friends that had run at the sight of him were out there and they were _suffering._ The fact that they probably had unlimited supply of buttered popcorn did not seem to strike Lea as amusing or as worthy counterevidence, much to Isa's chagrin.

Lea wanted to find them just like Isa had found him. Xemnas was willing to help, but what seemed to inflame Lea the most was the genuine indifference from Isa when the topic was brought up.

It wasn’t right. Isa knew that much. He promised to change his mind about it, there were certain things he had to work through first, things he couldn’t name but that were fierce and prevalent. _Possessiveness_. An unequivocally embarrassing thing to experience and even worse to say out loud to Lea’s pleading face.

Isa flinched when porcelain crashed onto the floor followed by Mrs. Graham screaming.

“Sorry!” Lea said loudly.

“You filthy, filthy man! Put clothes on before you leave your bedroom! I _cannot_ work like this!”

Lea tried to get a word in, but judging by the whip-like sounds, Mrs. Graham was ushering him away with either a hand towel or her apron.

Lea stumbled into the dining room, dressed for the Garden of Eden, muttering to himself while rubbing right above one butt cheek.

“She got me,” Lea told Isa with a wince.

“I’ve told you to wear clothes when you come downstairs. Poor Mrs. Graham. I won’t forgive you if she decides to quit.” Isa rose to his feet. He pulled on the sleeve of his long, knitted cardigan to take it off.

“Nothing felt right. If it wasn’t itchy, it was restraining. Clothes aren’t like fire.”

“Here.”

Lea held his arms out so Isa could tread it on him. Isa caught the small bob of Lea’s Adam’s apple when he pulled the cardigan close and began to button it slowly. He didn’t need to look to know that Lea was smirking.

“Don’t,” was all Isa said.

“What? I haven’t done anything.”

“You have your stupid face on.”

“This is the only face I have.”

Lea shimmied closer. This close, Isa could smell the flames that burned right beneath his skin. Whenever Lea put his hair in a bun and exposed the hairline on his neck, Isa could smell a distant forest of pine trees ablaze. It was a pleasant and strangely relaxing smell that made Isa think of Christmas.

“Is this what God’s Eye wears to work? His birthday suit?” Isa asked.

“Would that bother you?”

“Immensely.”

For someone displeased by the consequences of Isa’s possessiveness, he certainly encouraged the sentiment, if only to see Isa scowl at him for his outrageous suggestions.

“Did I tell you I’m booked up for the week?" Lea beamed with pride. "Lady Aqua gave me a good deal on an estate that is exquisite. It looks haunted already.”

“Do you really need the theatrics of it? I thought God’s Eye saw all, séance or not.”

“I do.” Lea made a face and clicked his tongue. “People seem more willing to listen to me talk about their future if they think their dead grandmother is saying it through me.”

“Have you ever spoken to a dead grandmother?”

“Spectres aren’t keen to talk to me. Something about your energy puts them off.”

“ _My_ energy?”

Lea laughed. “I’ve told you, haven’t I? You silenced the Fog.”

“Feel free to tell it again.”

“Well, that’s the end of it, really. You silenced the Fog, and you took over the role it had to make me a lunatic‒”

“You’re an arse,” Isa laughed.

It spurred Lea to move in closer. He ran his hands over Isa’s hips, making himself warmer to contrast the chill in the house.

Lea was no longer a Firebreather, but he had retained the fire. His wings had left long scars over his shoulder blades. At times, Lea rolled his shoulders and reached his hands back as if searching for them. It had taken long to replace habits and orient himself in this new world. Sensibilities was the one thing Lea had struggled with the most.

He didn’t seem to understand what was rude about a kiss where the housemaid could accidentally catch them in the act, and so, with a whisper of an apology to Mrs. Graham, Lea dipped his head to kiss Isa.

“See? Nothing bad happened.”

Lea had a skip in his step when he walked over to the dining table where breakfast was served.

“Have I told you about a certain law regarding gross indecency? Two years in prison.”

Isa joined Lea at the dining table.

“There is no prison in our future,” Lea said with the certainty of a preacher. “Is that a vegetable or a fruit?” Lea pointed to the sliced tomatoes on the other side of the table.

“Tomatoes.” Isa passed him the plate. “You must have been wrong in your predictions at least once.”

“Once is right, but mostly due to circumstance.”

“Maybe this is such a circumstance.”

Lea grinned. “It really isn’t.”

Isa sighed. He did not enjoy the part of the killjoy, but Lea’s frivolousness, even beyond their four walls, put the fear of God in him. Fighting against another realm was easy in comparison to the inevitable fight against the state that would rather see them worked to death than in an embrace.

“Lea.” Isa’s tone was stern. He placed his hand over Lea to demand his full attention. “You don’t know what malice lives here in this city. You don’t know who can see or hear, their intentions, and least of all the consequences you ‒ _we_ ‒ may suffer.”

Lea nodded like he understood. He pressed his lips into a thin smile that Isa only ever saw when Lea tried to explain the inexplicable.

“If the city tear us apart, I will burn it to the ground, and have you regardless. Our bond is eternal. So you needn’t worry.” Lea squeezed Isa’s hand, his eyes lingered as if there was a decision to make, and then, wearing that stupid face of his, he lifted Isa's hand to his lips and placed a soft kiss upon Isa’s knuckles, emerald green eyes seemingly sparkling at him.

 _Our bond is eternal_ , Isa repeated in his head. Lea had said it countless times before, just sprinkled it on top of conversations, solemn and otherwise, like salt on meat.

The damage was immediate. A fierce blush colored Isa’s ears and spread over his cheeks. He considered pulling his hand back, instead he gave Lea a squeeze, fast determined to seem preoccupied with his breakfast.

  
  
  



End file.
